


Falser Than Vows Made in Wine

by queenofchildren



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Nobody Dies, Slow Burn, accidentally married in Vegas oops, architecture ho!Benvolio, like very VERY slow, not even Romeo and Juliet that's right, or more accurately enemies to spouses to friends to lovers, protective!Rosaline, we're talking actual months here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:13:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 79,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: In which Romeo and Juliet try to be impulsive and romantic, Rosaline and Benvolio get drunk and stupid, and what happens in Vegas... does NOT stay in Vegas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have actually done research, and it's not all that easy to get accidentally married in Vegas, or get married when you're super drunk, but for the sake of this story, let's assume that it is.  
> The title is actually a Shakespeare quote, although it is from As You Like It and not Romeo and Juliet.  
> That said, I'm super excited about this fic!

 

> _Shut up and put your money where your mouth is_
> 
> _that's what you get for waking up in Vegas_
> 
> _Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes now_
> 
> _That's what you get for waking up in Vegas._

 

Rosaline is in no mood for romance, or all the craziness it brings. She just had her heart trampled all over by a man she thought was the love of her life, and then lost her job over it. Her sister met, fell for, and moved in with a former patient of hers over the span of barely as much time as it took the guy to recover from his injuries. And her cousin is planning the wedding of the century to tie the knot before she's even turned twenty-one.

Love is madness, and Rosaline wants nothing to do with it.

Which is why, when Juliet offers to treat her to a spa weekend in Vegas, fancy hotel suite included, she says yes without a second thought.

The hotel Juliet chose for them is gorgeous, sleek and modern and with not one piece of garish fake marble or tacky gold paint in sight. There's one of those aquarium columns in the middle of the lobby, stretching up the length of the three-story atrium and casting the entire lobby in soothing bluish light. The only thing spoiling their beautiful surroundings is the fact that there are two _Montagues_ standing in the middle of the lobby, and Juliet is steering her straight towards them.

"What,“ she hisses through clenched teeth, “are they _doing_ here, Jules?"

Juliet makes her usually irresistible puppy eyes, and Rosaline feels dread pool in her stomach.

"Don't be mad babe…"

But she doesn't get around to explaining, for as soon as he sees them, Romeo, the younger and much less obnoxious Montague, starts sprinting towards his fiancée, gathers Juliet in his arms and spins her around, never one to shy away from a flashy gesture.

"We're getting married bitchesss!"

At the nearby hotel bar, a few drunk patrons cheer vaguely, Juliet giggles, and past the aquarium, Rosaline's eyes fall on the older Montague, whose expression must be mirroring hers right now. Benvolio looks somewhere between shock, disgust and resignation, and she thinks that this may be the first time the two of them have ever had the same opinion on anything.

Maybe together they can stop this madness?

But what Juliet Capulet wants, Juliet Capulet gets - and tonight, she wants to elope in Vegas.

"We'll head to one of those little chapels and just get married. No boring service. No 400 super important guests. No five-star catering. No Vera Wang dress." This last point she does look a little regretful about, Rosaline thinks with vicious satisfaction.

Still, the older sister in her can never stay quiet in the face of such recklessness.

"You've been planning that wedding for months now!"

Longer, perhaps - in reality it feels like they've been going crazy over this wedding for years, with Juliet's mother treating Rosaline like her personal errant girl just because she's the maid of honor, and Romeo's father butting in all the time to let everyone know he's paying for half of the wedding. It's been a nightmare, to be honest.

"Exactly." Juliet shrugs. "I'm sick of it."

"Your parents won't be able to get back most of the down payments," she tries to reason once more, but Juliet is not to be dissuaded.

"That's their problem. Half the expensive stuff was their idea anyway. They don't care about our love, they just want to impress their stupid rich friends."

"And outshine each other," Romeo adds, and Rosaline has to admit he's probably right.

The rivalry between the Capulets and Montagues is the stuff of legends, stretching back so far no one even remembers what it started over. The fact that the two families' beloved and only children have somehow found their way together and convinced their parents to bury the hatchet for the span of one insanely glamorous wedding is a miracle unto itself - but then again, Rosaline has no doubt that, had anyone tried to stop them, Romeo and her cousin would have ended up in this exact same place and gone through with the marriage anyway.

"So we're not going to be their excuse to be at each other's throats anymore. We're getting married, and it's going to be about _us_ and no one else," Romeo exclaims, with a passion that might be exhausting in someone else but is annoyingly endearing in him.

Next to him, Juliet nods eagerly, looking at her fiance as if he had just singlehandedly invented the concept of romance.

"It's going to be so _romantic_ ," she sighs, then leans up to Romeo for an uncomfortably long kiss.

Rosaline rolls her eyes.

***

 

"It's… not as romantic as I imagined."

They're standing in front of the smallest, saddest wedding chapel Rosaline could have possibly imagined, having just spent the last two hours driving all over town in search of a chapel that is free to do the wedding today. Alas, all the somewhat pretty ones are booked out in advance ( _"Booked out?"_ was Romeo's horrified response, _"That goes against the whole point of eloping!"_ ), and the only free time slots were at about four in the morning.

So it was either getting married at four am, or getting married at a place that looked like the officiant might also rob you during the ceremony and then try to sell you back your own stuff.

"Don't worry, I'm sure the Elvis impersonator will give it his all on _'Love me tender'_ ", Benvolio comments sarcastically, and Rosaline has to admit, when it's not directed at her his snark is actually quite entertaining.

But Juliet's expression remains doubtful, Romeo looks less than enthusiastic too, and Rosaline has never felt more full of Schadenfreude.

They don't even make it past the entrance parlor, where a supremely bored employee shoves a set of forms at the hesitant bride and groom without so much as a hello. He does get a little more talkative after that, but only to rattle off a disclaimer that the chapel will not be held liable for any regret, accidental polygamy, or other damages occurring after the wedding. Then he tries to sell them all horribly tacky and overpriced souvenir shirts.

The happy couple's faces get longer and longer, and finally, Romeo lowers his pen from where it was hovering over one of the forms.

"I love you babe, but I don't think I can do this."

With a sigh of relief, Juliet throws down her own pen, leaving a big splotch of ink on the paper.

"Oh thank God! I hate it here, I don't want the rest of our life to start in a place like this."

If the chapel employee is offended at her distaste, his impassive face shows no sign of it.

"So we're doing the big wedding after all?"

Juliet beams. "Yes, we're doing the big wedding!" Then she throws herself into her fiancé's arms to kiss him passionately.

"You have got to be fucking _kidding_ me," is all Rosaline manages to say in reaction.

She was dragged here, cheated out of a much-needed spa weekend, _and_ forced to interact with Benvolio Montague - and it was all for nothing? Desperate for someone, _anyone_ to support her, she looks to the best man. But Benvolio is doubled over laughing, wheezing whoops escaping him every once in a while. Rosaline rolls her eyes – she should have known he wouldn't be any help.

Finally, when she's about to strangle him with a souvenir shirt, Benvolio straightens up again, exaggeratedly wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

"Well, looks like I've got my material for the best man speech," he concludes cheerfully and grins expectantly. "Now what?"

Two flushed faces look at him sheepishly. It's two in the afternoon, and apparently, Juliet and Romeo didn't make any plans for this weekend beyond eloping.

"I for one was lured here with the promise of a weekend of debauchery," Benvolio states, a half-second before Rosaline can speak up and bring up the topic of her spa weekend once more. "I say we get started on that."

Rosaline wants to protest, but Benvolio suggests they start the “debauchery” with a steak dinner, and, well, they have been driving around all morning and she is actually famished. So she goes along for the dinner, planning to talk Juliet into ditching their company as soon as possible. And since the restaurant has a cocktail happy hour in the middle of the afternoon and it's been a _day_ , Rosaline decides it's only fair she gets to treat herself to a drink as well.

Which _of course_ Benvolio has to comment on.

" _Daydrinking_ , Capulet? I didn't know you had it in you."

She doesn't dignify him with an answer.

Unfortunately, however, Juliet and Romeo are so caught up in themselves that eventually, there's no way around interacting with him: It's either talk to the other third wheel, or risk getting her eyes stuck in the back of her head because she's rolling them so much.

"Have I told you that I love you?" Romeo murmurs into Juliet's ear for about the millionth time just then.

"Only about ten seconds ago," Rosaline mutters under her breath, but the happy couple doesn't hear her. Rosaline downs the rest of her mimosa - only to have her glass taken away from her as soon as it's empty.

"Alright, Capulet, time to get you out of here."

"What."

"You're grumpy. Vegas and grumpy don't go well together."

"Why do you care?", she asks, deepening her frown to look even grumpier, just on principle. 

"Because it looks like you're my only company for the weekend, and I make it a point not to associate with boring people. So you'll have to woman up and try and have some fun."

 _"I don't want to have fun!"_ , she almost replies, and then freezes as the words hit her. Is she really so determined to be unhappy the entire time here? Sure, Juliet and Romeo luring them here for a surprise wedding and then not even getting married is perhaps a little inconsiderate, but it is also undoubtedly funny, and something she can tease her cousin with for years to come. Besides, she's been like this for weeks, constantly in a bad mood, and the realisation suddenly makes her angry: So not only did Escalus break her heart, but he also turned her into a boring stick-in-the-mud?

 _Hell_ no.

She's in Vegas. She's going to have some fun - even if it is with the likes of Benvolio Montague.

She gets up so abruptly her chair scrapes loudly across the chair.

“Alright. Let's have _fun_ then,” she snarls, then almost flinches at how... questionable it sounds.

Benvolio seems to have heard it too, but to his credit, he doesn't comment. Instead he smiles, and looks almost genuine.

"That's the spirit, Capulet."

Juliet and Romeo protest only very perfunctorily when they take off, no doubt planning to return to the hotel and make use of the already paid-for suite.

And since that probably means Rosaline won't be able to get back into the suite for some time, there's only one thing left to do: Keep drinking.

But to her amazement, it turns out that drinking with Benvolio Montague may have been just what she needed.

First, he goads her into chugging a Long Island Ice Tea to see who can down it faster. Rosaline retaliates by daring him to perform "Call me maybe" on the bar's karaoke machine, and then has to down another cocktail when he actually does a fairly good job - mostly in tune, and with a rousing charm that soon has the handful of other patrons enthusiastically singing along. Next, he dares her to hit on the first three guys she makes eye contact with and she _actually_ does it, probably because he calls her boring again and she wants to prove him wrong (although why it should matter what he thinks of her is a question she prefers not to ask herself).

Honestly, by that time she's surprised he's even still with her - she thought he'd have abandoned her a long time ago to head to a strip club or something. But Benvolio stays, teaches her to play Blackjack, brings her drinks and the occasional coke, makes jokes that are not all terrible (though obviously, she doesn't tell him this), and even chivalrously whisks her away when she accidentally hits on two men a little too close together and they immediately get into a fight over it.

By the time the sun sets, Rosaline has to admit that maybe he's not as terrible as she had thought until then. Absolutely full of himself, yes, but not the kind of fratboy douche turned corporate tyrant she had pegged him for based on the few times she met him at one of Romeo's parties.

So, against all odds, hours after he turned up this morning to herald the ruin of her weekend, she's still hanging out with Benvolio Montague, and she's doing it voluntarily - although of course, her other options are trying to get Romeo and Juliet to yield the hotel room, or taking off alone in the hopes that she'll find some new friends to hang out. 

Compared to these options, it _might_ just be preferable to sit on a hotel rooftop and watch the sun set over the glittering city, slowly gearing up for a long, wild weekend.

There's an official rooftop bar just two floors below them, but Benvolio took one look at it, deemed it "too crowded", and led her up a fire escape to the roof instead – the kind of thing that Rosaline, usually the designated “sensible friend”, would _never_ do. Once again, she feels that little thrill of adventure flare up, that spark of defiance that made her stand up in that restaurant and exclaim that she was going to have some _fun_. Well, she's certainly having fun today, and doing a lot of things she would never usually do - and honestly, amazingly, it feels _good_.

Escalus would freak out if he could see her now, she thinks randomly, and then realizes that this is the first time she's thought about her ex since this morning.

With a smile, Rosaline takes another sip of the water Benvolio bought her at their last stop, despite her whining that she'd prefer a cocktail. _"Staying hydrated is the first rule of a Vegas weekend, Capulet. Did you learn nothing from The Hangover?"_ , he chided her, and she remembers thinking that of course he would count The Hangover among his favorite movies. But now, she has to admit she's kind of glad for the refreshing water – and probably still a lot more drunk than she'd like to admit, so maybe she should take that advice about staying hydrated.

For an indeterminable time, Rosaline lets her thoughts stray and her eyes wander down the long line of flashing lights, one casino after another, bars and restaurants and other entertainment venues. They all look tiny and insignificant from up here, and the rest of her life feels just as far removed.

For the first time in a long time, she feels her mind quiet down – and to her surprise, Benvolio falls silent and doesn't interrupt her aimless musings.

Well, for a little while at least.

"You know what we should do?", he eventually asks, mischief in his voice.

And when she turns her head and looks at him, his face bathed in gold from the setting sun, his eyes bright with the reflection of that last fading strip of desert sky below the first glinting stars, Rosaline knows she's going to say yes no matter what he suggests.

"We should get married."

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rosaline Capulet has had her fair share of bad hangovers before, courtesy of her wild child of a cousin, her snake of an ex, and her own recent demotion to family disappointment.

But nothing could have prepared her for waking up in a hotel room with her head about to explode, various clothes strewn all over the room – and a naked Benvolio Montague in bed next to her.

She can't be sure that he's completely naked, since he's thankfully covered by one of the the thin hotel sheets from about the waist down, but she's sure as hell not going to try and find out.

Either way, this looks bad. Very,  _very_ bad.

And that's before she even notices the _ring_.

It's a slender silver band on her left ring finger, topped by tiny glittering rhinestones that remind her of a burst of starlight, and it looks pretty good on her hand even if she has no idea where it came from.

Through the roaring in her head Rosaline tries, without much success, to reconstruct the events leading up to this moment. There was definitely alcohol involved, and karaoke, she thinks, and the rooftop of their hotel, and then things get sort of fuzzy.

And just when she's about to panic about those memories, especially the ones still hazy through the fog of the night, there's a text from Juliet – but unfortunately, it's not very reassuring either.

“ _babe, u know I'll love and support u no matter what but r u ok? pls txt when ur up.“_

Shortly followed by another, even more alarming text:

“ _also, heads up: mom will kill u.“_

Rosaline pushes down her growing panic to text back:

_"What are you talking about?"_

It takes a heartstopping minute for Juliet to reply. But instead of a text, she sends a screenshot of what Rosaline realises is her own facebook page. And at the top of it, her most recent status update shows a picture of her, covered in glitter, pressing a kiss to a smiling Benvolios cheek, her arms slung tightly around his neck and his around her waist.

 _"Just married"_ , reads the caption, followed by the hashtags _#onlyinvegas_  and _#YOLO_ , and Rosaline throws away her phone in shock, as if removing the image from her sight could remove it from reality entirely.

She only allows herself a moment to freak out, however, before she pulls herself together to think this through.

There's a picture of her cosying up to Benvolio Montague with an alarming wedding-related caption, that very same man possibly naked in bed beside her, and a shiny new ring on her finger that conveniently matches the ring on Benvolio's hand, which he definitely wasn't wearing when they met up yesterday morning.

But all of that doesn't have to _mean_ anything. It could all be some sort of misunderstanding. Hell, it could be Benvolio's idea of a practical joke.

That has to be it, Rosaline thinks and gets up resolutely - only to have her second near-death-experience of the day when she becomes aware of her _own_ state of undress. She's not completely naked, that's something. But the fact that she's wearing nothing more than her panties is not entirely reassuring either.

"Don't panic", she whispers to herself, repeating it like a mantra: “Don't panic,  _don't_ panic.”

There's probably a very good explanation for all of this, and as soon as she's found some clothes, Rosaline is going to get that explanation. She grabs the next best item of clothing she can find on the floor, a shirt she only belatedly realises isn't hers. But she can't locate her bra, and her own shirt, when she eventually finds it, is actually ripped down the middle (a fact she prefers not to think about). Since she has no intention of facing this entire situation topless, she pulls the found shirt over her head and tries not to register the fact that it's noticeably too wide and smells of man and belongs to the very last person she ever thought she'd wake up with.

Rosaline helps herself to a bottle of water from the minibar and gulps down half of it, then bends down to retrieve her phone. Juliet will no doubt find the whole thing hilarious, but if she wants to leave this room looking somewhat decent, Rosaline will have to bite the bullet and ask her cousin for help. She's about to text her for some fresh clothes and emotional support when there's a drawn-out yawn from behind her, followed by the most inappropriately cheery reaction to this whole mess she could possibly imagine.

"Aah, there's my beloved wife."

The words, apparent confirmation that what she thinks happened last night actually did happen, make chilling dread creep up on her. She focuses on something less terrifying instead: the irritating fact that Benvolio seems to have weathered the night with his health, dignity and good mood perfectly intact, while she woke up unsure if she felt like killing someone else, killing herself, or if there's a chance she's already been killed and woke up in hell.

Then she remembers that for one fleeting moment right after waking, before the reality of her situation hit her like a wrecking ball to the head, she did in fact feel mostly fine. The suffering only set in with a slight delay. And with the beginning of a smug smile, Rosaline watches as the same thing happens to him.

Benvolio sits up in bed, his bare chest glinting as the morning sun hits the colourful smears of glitter sticking to it, licks his lips, grimaces, and then turns positively green.

With a groan he flops back down on the bed, lifts one hand to rub at his glitter-stained lips and then stares at it in confusion.

"Why is there glitter in my _mouth_?"

"Why is there glitter _everywhere_?" Rosaline snaps back, because the stuff is all over _her_ too. But she hasn't even closed her mouth before a memory resurfaces: of Benvolio's lips running hotly down her neck, to the dip of her throat and the top of her breasts and… heat shoots through her, and the big gulp of water she takes next isn't entirely meant to battle her hangover. She definitely knows how all that glitter ended up on his lips.

"Oh, I remember", Benvolio exclaims, and Rosaline chokes on the water. "There were glitter canons at the chapel, instead of guests throwing rice." He chuckles to himself. "They sure know how to throw a wedding."

"You remember the _wedding_?" Rosaline croaks out, then dissolves into another round of coughs. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees movement as he gets out of bed, then suddenly he's standing behind her, heartily clapping her back to make her stop coughing.

"Of course I do. Who could forget the most important day of their life? You were the most beautiful bride Vegas has ever seen, and I the happiest groom..."

Rosaline snaps one elbow back into his stomach, not very hard but still hard enough to make him yelp and shut up.

"Can you please be serious and tell me if you actually remember us getting married?"

She turns around to level him with a stern glare, only remembering a second too late that he's potentially naked.

Then again, she might as well rip that particular bandaid of truth off right now.

Quickly, she lets her eyes dart down his (distractingly close) chest, holding her breath until her eyes find the waistband of his dark blue boxers.

With a sigh of relief, Rosaline turns back to the little desk, playing with her ring as she waits for him to recover enough to actually be of help in this mess.

It really is a pretty ring, she thinks absentmindedly, and another memory resurfaces, of standing by a jewelry display case in some 24-hour convenience store and looking at rings. She'd already grabbed one without really looking, hasty and giddy with excitement, when Benvolio's hand had closed over hers and put the ring back; a clunky, ugly thing. Then he had studied her for a long moment before turning back to the case, fingers going straight to another ring, and holding it out to her with a serious expression.

 _"This one. This one is you,"_   he had exclaimed earnestly, and she remembers getting trapped in those bright eyes for a moment that may not have been the first of the evening, or the last. The memory turns hazy after that, but she assumes one of them paid for the rings – at least, she hopes they did. The last thing she needs is a charge of petty theft on top of everything else.

While she's still trying to make sense of the memory, Benvolio steps even closer, bending over her to pull out a piece of paper that was previously hidden under a hotel stationery notepad.

"My memory's a little hazy, but I definitely remember some sort of vow. But if you don't want to take my word, I think this thing confirms it."

He lays it down on the table before her, smoothing out a few wrinkles, and Rosaline stares in abject horror. Because the light blue piece of paper does in fact confirm her very worst fears: It's a marriage license, signed by both her and him.

 _Don't panic_ , she tells herself once more, then does an equally unproductive but much more satisfying thing: She swivels around in the chair, pokes Benvolio sharply in the chest, and hisses:

“This is all _your_ fault!” Because she remembers how it started now: With a sunset of blue and pink and gold and " _We should get married”_ and those damned _eyes_ of his. “ _You're_ the one who suggested getting married!”

But Benvolio isn't one to be easily intimidated by her.

“Well, you apparently went along with it. Plus, you were the one who wanted to have some _fun_! And we definitely did that.”

He falls silent abruptly, looking like he's thinking hard.

"Although to be honest, I'm not sure just how much fun we had...", he trails off, looking unexpectedly flustered.

Rosaline has been asking herself the same thing since she woke up, and now, with her mind finally shocked awake by the sight of the marriage license, she's slowly starting to piece things together, looking around the room for clues to trigger more memories.

There's an unopened box of condoms on his side of the bed, which is either a good thing or very, very bad. But surely if they had the presence of mind to buy condoms, they would have used them? And she definitely remembers him leaving to buy condoms, now that she thinks about it.

In fact, she's been remembering more and more things in increasing detail – his lips on her neck and her hands clawing at his shirt and the sound of her moan when he sucked on that spot beneath her ear and her hand palming him through his jeans... All those memories, sights and sounds and sensations, are so overwhelmingly vivid now that she finds it hard to believe she wouldn't remember if things had further escalated. If she had actually shed that last piece of clothing and pulled him on top of her on the bed, arching up to kiss him... surely she'd remember _that_?

“I don't think we actually _had_ sex,” she concludes, hoping it's the truth and yet somehow feeling almost disappointed that it isn't. No, she tells herself, it's a good thing that they didn't follow through on their make-out session. There's getting over someone by getting under someone else, and then there's jumping into bed with a Montague to do so. There has to be a line here _somewhere_.

“There was a certain amount of kissing," she explains, and feels her cheeks heat up as she remembers even more details and has to admit that _kissing_ sounds awfully innocent for what they actually did. "But we didn't have sex. The last thing I remember is you going to get condoms. I must have fallen asleep."

His face brightens.

“You did, I remember now! First time that ever happened to me, just for the record.”

Rosaline would roll her eyes, but refrains because her head would probably explode if she did.

“So, we didn't have sex. That's something I guess.”

"Yes, thank God," he agrees and sags back against the wall behind him.

But the relieved expression on his face quickly gives way to trepidation again.

"But the stuff we _did_ do... you were into that, right? I didn't get you drunk and pressure you into something you didn't want?"

He seems genuinely worried, and Rosaline isn't petty enough to let him wait for her reassurance, not about this.

"No, I was...", oh, she was into it alright – her glitter-covered palms this morning were proof enough. She swallows hard. "You didn't force me. And I wasn't too drunk to consent either."

There's a moment of awkward silence, during which Rosaline wonders which part of the situation she should try and wrap her mind around first; or if there's even a chance to grasp any of this at all.

"What are we gonna do now?" Benvolio eventually asks, forlornly, and it takes her a moment to understand that he's asking _her_.

Well, she guesses, someone has to take charge here. Might as well be the one with some common sense – well, Vegas wedding aside.

"We need an annulment.” At least, she thinks they do, because it's what they do in movies where this kind of thing happens – movies she always scoffed at for being so blatantly ridiculous and unrealistic. “Which means _you_ are going to call the lawyer you no doubt have on speed dial, for paternity claims and such," he frowns briefly and she gloats at landing a hit, "and I am going to take a long shower.”

And that's exactly what she does – time to wash off the glitter and face the fallout of her little night of _fun_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here it is, the morning after. Romeo and Juliet will return soon, and a whole lot of other people will contribute their opinions as well. But for now, those two will deal with each other.  
> Also, I upped the rating for this. Just in case ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Drowning herself in the shower is an option Rosaline seriously considers, for a longer time than is perhaps altogether reasonable.

She's only startled out of her dreary musings when someone bangs on the bathroom door so hard she almost slips and falls in her surprise – although then again, that would put her out of her misery as well.

“Will you come out of the goddamn shower already Capulet? You're not the only one who wants to get rid of that infernal glitter.“

She sighs, but reluctantly turns off the water. Even the worst Montague does not deserve to be stuck covered in glitter all day, she supposes, but she's still going to make him wait a little while for almost making her fall and crack open her head.

Without any of her stuff here, there's not much left to do though. At least she can brush her teeth, and while she does, Rosaline sends a silent prayer to the hotel gods for providing not only complimentary toothbrushes but soft, oversized bathrobes and slippers as well.

When she finally opens the door, Benvolio, who has been leaning against the doorframe, almost topples over onto her. She's only saved by a quick step sideways, although that still brings them in uncomfortably close proximity. Which is annoying for a variety of reasons, but mostly because, after she just spent at least half an hour trying to scrub off the memory of last night, he still looks exactly like he must have last night, glittery and practically naked and with his hair standing up every which way, which according to her vague, blurry memories she definitely had a hand in. The calming effect of thirty minutes of breathing exercises just go right out the window as she stares at him, and realizes only belatedly that he's staring back with a strange expression.

“I texted Romeo and told him to have your cousin bring over some of your clothes, by the way. You're welcome.”

With that gruff note, he takes her by the shoulders and steers her the last few steps out of the bathroom. Before she can turn around – either to complain about being manhandled or to thank him for calling Juliet – he has slammed the bathroom door in her face.

Luckily, she doesn't have to spend much time alone with her no longer shower-calmed thoughts before there's a knock on the hotel room door.

“Rosaline? You in there?” That's Juliet's voice, followed by muffled laughter that Rosaline hopes does _not_ come from her cousin.

When she opens the door, it's Romeo who bursts in first, arms spread triumphantly as he calls out:

“Congratulations!”

The only thing missing is one of those obnoxiously loud party whistles.

"Tell your fiancé to shut up or I'll make sure he doesn't live to see your wedding day," Rosaline growls darkly in Juliet's direction, then immediately realises what a mistake she made.

Romeo's broad grin becomes even broader.

"And speaking of weddings..."

Rosaline wonders if there's anything alcoholic left over in the minibar, or if that fell victim to last night's "debauchery" as well.

Juliet elbows her fiancé in the side, then steps into the room to wrap her arms around Rosaline.

"How are you holding up babe?"

Rosaline shrugs helplessly. How is she doing? She has a feeling everything about her current situation gives a clear enough answer: not great. But she can't bring herself to say the words, because doing so would mean admitting that her daydreaming baby cousin has her life more together than she herself currently does.

Luckily, Romeo's excited puppy-nature saves her from the awkwardness of bursting into tears.

"Why is everyone acting like we're at a funeral? My main man got married! I wanna celebrate!"

He looks around the room, seemingly noticing only now that one of the night's key players is missing.

"Wait, you didn't kill him and dissolve his body in the bathtub, did you?"

Rosaline rolls her eyes, but she's already feeling a little less likely to burst into tears at any moment.

"He's in the shower."

Romeo waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and she quickly adds: "There was a glitter canon."

"So it's really true, you got married? This isn't just some elaborate prank?" Romeo inquires, seemingly blind to the fact that, if this was a prank, it's clearly one she isn't enjoying very much.

The bathroom door opens and Benvolio steps out, wearing a pair of jeans but still no shirt (which, really, that has go to stop!) and dripping water from his hair onto the carpet.

"Oh it's true alright. There's a license and everything."

He sounds about as grim as she feels, which is only moderately less annoying than his earlier cheerfulness.

"Ooh, and a ring too!" Juliet exclaims excitedly and grabs Rosaline's hand to examine the ring in question. Rosaline wasn't even aware that she's still wearing it – did she not take it off to shower? Or did she put it back on immediately? And should she take it off now?

Apparently getting accidentally married presents a host of unexpected problems.

"Well, at least you didn't skimp on the ring," Juliet finishes her assessment, giving Benvolio an approving smile that reminds Rosaline once more that her cousin really does see reality through perpetually rose-tinted glasses.

"We bought it at a convenience store, I doubt it's worth that much."

"Wherever you bought it, it's still set with real diamonds."

At this point Rosaline didn't think anything could shock her anymore.

Clearly, she was wrong.

"Are... Are you sure?"

"We've been looking at rings for about three months straight last year. Trust me, I'm sure."

Rosaline suddenly feels like the ring is burning straight through her skin. She wrenches it off and practically throws it away from her and onto the bed, where it bounces softly.

"I can't keep that." Which of course raises the question if she had so far intended to keep it, seeing that she has no intention of staying married at all.

"Relax, Capulet, we'll get it exchanged," Benvolio assures her, and while she should be grateful for the attempt, all she can think is how annoying it is that he's being so cool about this whole thing.

But Juliet smiles again, apparently easily impressed.

"That's a great idea. How about we all get some breakfast, and then you two", she gestures at Romeo and Benvolio, "take care of making this whole thing... unhappen."

"And what are _we_ doing?" Rosaline asks, because she's not sure she can handle waiting around at the hotel all day for someone else to clean up her mess.

But Juliet's idea of how they'll spend the day is just too tempting.

"We are going to get you your spa day. Clearly, you need it."

***

 

Their backs have barely hit the deck chairs in the hotel's spa area, faces smeared in some sort of green goo, when Juliet turns to her excitedly.

"So? What exactly happened last night?"

"I got one step further to ruining my own life, I thought we'd already established that," Rosaline replies dully.

"You hardly _ruined your life_. Romeo and Ben are going to make the whole thing go away."

"Everyone still _knows_."

"Then everyone will have to get over themselves. Come on, Rose, when did you even start to care what everyone says?"

Rosaline doesn't have a reply ready. When _did_ she get like this? So easily intimidated, fretting about other people's opinions when she's done her damnedest to igore them the last few years of her life?

"Besides, I didn't mean the wedding. What about the wedding _night_ , huh?"

"We didn't have one."

"There were condoms in your room."

"Yes, unused ones." Even under a thick layer of gunk, Juliet looks less than convinced. "Really, we didn't have sex. I fell asleep. And we're both very happy about that."

There's a moment of silence, and Rosaline almost thinks she managed to shake off her terrier of a little cousin.

Alas, no such luck.

"You still bought the condoms though. You must have been at least _thinking_ about having sex."

 _He_ bought the condoms, Rosaline wants to reply, then realises what a bad light that would shed on Benvolio. He did after all make sure that it wasn't just _his_ idea, which shows some decency.

"Well. Clearly, my mental capacities were a little diminished last night."

Juliet takes her lack of a refute as an admission, it seems: she gasps, exaggeratedly shocked, and then grins triumphantly.

"Rosaline Capulet, you were totally planning to have sex with him."

"I wasn't..."

"You wanted to have crazy drunken wedding night sex," Juliet cuts her off gleefully, so loud that a nearby spa-employee shushes them reproachfully. But Juliet isn't finished torturing her yet. "With a _Montague_!"

"I'm gonna throw up," Rosaline moans. Sure, her returning memories of last night make her somewhat confident that she wasn't exactly disgusted with what was happening – but that was then.

"Don't be overdramatic, that's my thing," Juliet commands, but her stern voice grows soft again when she sees Rosaline's pained expression. "Besides, he's not that bad."

" _Not that bad_?" Rosaline exclaims incredulously. "He's a gigantic manwhore! I'm lucky I didn't sleep with him, he probably would have given me chlamydia!"

"Isn't that what the condoms would have prevented?"

"Can we please not talk about this any longer?" 

"Alright, alright." Juliet concedes.

But just when Rosaline relaxes once more, her cousin has to get one more remark in.

"Still, he's not as bad as you want to believe. There are worse people you could be married to."

"I'm still not going to stay married to him."

***

 

She should have known it wouldn't be so easy to make her little adventure “unhappen”.

The first sign was that Benvolio and Romeo returned from their morning-after-mission without any kind of annulment paperwork, but still with the blasted ring in its little box. Apparently, the owner of the store they bought it at refused to take it back, and every pawn shop in town only offered rates that Benvolio considered offensive. _"I'd rather just let you have the ring than be ripped off by those sharks,"_ he spat as he slammed it down before her, and Rosaline, because she was still slightly hungover and because the stupid ring is just so ridiculously pretty, slipped it back on her finger, where she has admired it in regular intervals ever since.

She was weak that morning, and now she's paying for it. Rosaline may have left Vegas behind, but Vegas clearly wasn't done with her yet.

Because when Benvolio texts her to meet him at a coffee shop and talk about their "situation" three days after they get back, she expects him to be waiting with annulment papers for her to sign. But there are no papers, or any kind of bag, briefcase, or anything else they could be hidden in. There's only Benvolio with two cups of iced coffee, and instead of letting her sign her way back to a somewhat normal existence, he says:

"We have to stay married."

This must be what an out-of-body experience feels like, Rosaline thinks detachedly. She sits down on the chair opposite him, just in case she needs to faint.

Then she croaks:

" _What_?"

"Just for a little while, a year or so."

Rosaline can only stare dumbly, but her face seems to be doing an okay job of communicating her confusion without words.

Benvolio runs a hand through his hair, turning it from slightly mussed into a complete mess.

"Look, it's complicated. But my uncle has to believe our wedding was real, or he'll take my share of the company."

"He can do that?" The second the question is out, Rosaline wants to bite off her own tongue. She should not give a damn about what his uncle plans to do – the only thing that counts is getting out of this marriage.

"Apparently, he can. So now I have to show that I can be responsible, and my uncle seems to think getting married in Vegas is the opposite of responsible."

"But you _did_ get married in Vegas."

"Yes, Capulet, I'm glad you've finally accepted that part of reality." His patronising tone makes her briefly consider throwing her iced coffee in his face - but it is damned good iced coffee. "But there's a difference between romantically eloping with your secret girlfriend, and getting drunk and married to some random girl who scowls at you occasionally."

"Your... your girlfriend."

"That would be you, in this scenario."

"You want me to pretend to actually _like_ you? For a _year_?!"

" _Love_ me, actually." He flashes her a grin. " _Madly_. But don't worry, you'd profit from it too."

"What, you'd pay me?"

"Don't make this weird - of course I wouldn't. But do you have any idea of the kind of tax breaks you're getting when you're married? They're nothing to sneer at."

" _Taxes_? That's how you're trying to get me on board with this?"

"Right, I forgot - it's not like you earn enough to pay taxes in the first place. How about this then: you can live at my place the entire time. Rent free."

And to her eternal shame, those two little words make her scoff of protest die on her lips. Because in addition to being jobless, heartbroken, and tied in unholy matrimony to a Montague, Rosaline is also about to be homeless. Since her current, below-minimum-wage job doesn't pay for her cute and comfortable bedroom-apartment, she gave her landlord her notice last month, and has exactly two weeks left to find a new, cheaper place, or move back into the one place she couldn't wait to move out of: her aunt and uncle's house.

And apparently, those are the kind of circumstances that make a smart, independent woman like her consider this ridiculous idea, at least long enough to think about the logistics behind it.

"And where would _you_ be living?"

"Also at my place, obviously. We'll just have to set up some ground rules."

She should leave before she gives up her last little bit of pride, find a lawyer and get this whole annulment business dealt with herself. But just when she's about to reach for her bag, he stops her - with the last word she ever expected to come out of his mouth.

"Please."

Rosaline freezes in her movements, bag already in her lap, to stare at him as he makes his plea.

"I can't lose my Dad's share in the company. Not over this."

Benvolio may be fond of a good show, but in that moment, the vulnerability on his face is real - and dammit, it's getting to her.

"You're paying for rent _and_ groceries."

"Done."

A smile sneaks onto his face, and Rosaline decides she does not want to find out what it's about. She gets to her feet hastily, but it's too late.

"You realise that this essentially makes you a kept woman."

She's not going to dignify that with an answer, she decides.

But just as she's turned to walk away, he calls after her:

"I'll see you at our wedding dinner then."

Slowly, she turns back around.

"Our what?"

"My uncle insists on throwing a dinner in honour of our wedding – just you, me, our beloved families, and my uncle's most important business partners." He bares his teeth in what she assumes is supposed to be a grin but could just as well be an expression of pain. "An intimate affair, really."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Believe me, I wish I was. It's tomorrow at eight – I'll send a car."

Now, she really does need to get out, if only so he doesn't get to watch her completely lose her shit. But of course, Benvolio manages to get _another_ last word in.

"And Capulet? Try and make an effort to look happy, will you?"

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are things really sucky for Rosaline at the moment? Yes they are, just like on the show - but that just means there's so much more room for happiness to grow.  
> Also, what the hell happened between her and Escalus? And how can Benvolio's uncle blackmail him like this? All will be revealed, as soon as I'm done figuring it out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter. It got looong, and full of way too much talking.  
> Also, this is awkward but I've set Livia up to be happy with Paris way back when it looked like that could actually happen (should have trusted my instincts not to trust him then), so now we all have to pretend that that's a reasonable assumption okthanks.  
> Also, not to brag, but I managed to put my favorite quote from The Mummy in this chapter.  
> There's a lot of backstory in this chapter too, and I'm not sure all of it works but... it's the best I had.

 

"I can't believe I'm hearing this!”

For someone who is usually the sweetest, gentlest ray of sunshine imaginable, Livia looks and sounds a lot like an angry bear as she turns on her sister in the middle of a quiet little café.

“I thought that Facebook post was a _joke_!"

Well, that explains why Livia's only reaction to Rosaline's Horrible Terrible Very Big Mistake was a comment that read: ' _yeah right lol'_ , rather than the anticipated cross-examination - although Livia wastes no time getting to that now.

The evening after Rosaline decided to go along with Benvolio's crazy plan, Livia returned from the super special advanced nurse training course that kept her from joining them on Juliet's little trip. And when Rosaline meets her for brunch the next morning to beg for her support at the big wedding celebration dinner, Livia is _not_ taking the news of her nuptuals well at all.

“Oh come on, it's not like you've never gotten a little drunk and stupid before.“

“A little, yes. But not enough to go around marrying _random strangers_!“

“Benvolio is not a stranger, he's Romeo's cousin. So he's basically family, really.“

Livia's face scrunches up in disgust. “Is that supposed to make it better?”

“I don't know, I thought it might. But either way, it's not that big a deal. Instead of getting our marriage annulled, we just stay married for a year or two, then get amicably divorced.”

“I feel like we really haven't covered the _why_ enough yet.”

“Easy: Benvolio would save lots of money on taxes if he was married, especially if his wife makes a lot less than he does,” now it's Rosaline's turn to make a face, “and if I help him out with that, I get to live at his place rent-free for the duration of the marriage. Which means I don't have to move back in with aunt and uncle Capulet,” she shudders at the thought, “and if things turn out well and I find a job before that, I'll save a ton of money on rent. And I don't even have to do anything. It's really more of a question of why _not_.”

There's a slight chance Rosaline is still trying to convince herself that the whole thing is a good idea - and she's definitely not convincing Livia.

" _Why not_?" Livia repeats shrilly. "Because it's not the middle ages anymore! Women don't need to get married just to have a roof over their head, we can get jobs for that. And you'll find something again, I know you will." Rosaline has to smile at her little sister's feminist concern. And she gets it; agrees with it even, because they have both been raised never to make themselves depend on a man, and Rosaline was always determined to stick by that rule. But right now, Rosaline is exhausted; tired of trying to figure out how to keep herself afloat while ignoring aunt Giuliana's barbs. She's found an option to get around both of those things, and she doesn't have enough pride left to say no just because that option depends on Benvolio Montague. 

Still, Livia isn't ready to give up on her yet.

"Why don't you just move in with me and Paris, if you're having trouble paying rent?"

"You two lovebirds? I'd rather stab myself with a fork."

Rosaline says it lightly and smiles, because if there's anyone who deserves to be sickeningly in love, it's her sister. But still, the thought of living with Livia and her perfectly devoted boyfriend is difficult to stomach given that her own love life is in tatters.

Don't be bitter, she tells herself again and again, but she doesn't know what else to be. How are you supposed to be feeling when you start an affair with your boss, knowing that it could end both your careers, and then find out that the man you considered the love of your life has no intention to prioritize your relationship over his own work?

You get bitter, that's what you do, and quit your job and put your thesis on ice in order to sit around and pity yourself. And apparently, to enter into ill-advised marriages.

"Then let us at least help you out financially. I'll pay your rent, and you can pay me back when you've found another job."

"I can't take that kind of money from you, Liv."

"But you can take it from a _Montague_?"

Her sister's tone holds the same contempt hers always does when she talks about their rival family. After all, it was a Montague who engineered the takeover that ruined their father's company and gave him a heart attack. That made her mother decide to turn her back on the family and run off to a spiritual retreat in the Himalayas, leaving her teenage daughters in the very reluctant care of their aunt and uncle. The feud between Montagues and Capulets may be the stuff of legends now, but for Rosaline and her sister, it's very much real, and personal.

But if she wants to have even the slightest chance at making it through the next year, she can't think of that right now.

"I'd rather do this than be dependent on our dear aunt and uncle for one more day."

Livia sighs, but she knows: once Rosaline is determined to do something, there's no dissuading her.

"Alright. But promise me that if you don't want to do this anymore, you won't stay there because you think you don't have any other choice, okay? You always have a choice. And you'll always have me. Capulets stick together."

Rosaline feels her throat tighten, but she nods anyway.

"Promise."

***

  
The town of Verona Cove prides itself on going if not entirely back to the Mayflower, then certainly to the second or third ship of colonists to reach the new world. And among the many eminent persons walking off that ship to found their town, one also founded the Capulet family.

It's a heritage Rosaline's uncle never gets tired of trotting out, and thanks to her aunt, she is also regularly made aware of the many ways in which she's failing that heritage, the family's current reputation, and the town in general. Not only did her anestors help build that town, after all, but they still own about half of it, and quite a bit beyond its borders – although, as Benvolio's uncle claimed at Juliet and Romeo's engagement dinner of all times, it seems to be the failing half.

The Montagues, on the other hand, show no signs of being associated with failure: If the Capulets own half the state, the Montagues built the other half - with their bare hands, as Romeo and Benvolio's grandfather liked to stress. Now, the business old Montague started as a small contracting firm has been expanded into a booming empire by his sons, and its success shows no signs of waning. If the tragic death of the younger Montague brother and his wife, Benvolio's parents, ever impacted that success at all, the family's current patriarch Damiano certainly never let people know. On the contrary: after his younger brother's death, he turned Montague & Sons into a real estate giant, and has been steadily expanding his empire since then.

That's about all Rosaline knows about the Montague family, really - that, and the fact that, at some point decades ago, a feud broke out between the two families that has yet to end. And perhaps, that's exactly what people are hoping will happen, now that two pairs of family offspring appear to have found each other. One marriage between a Montague and a Capulet already amounts to a sensation, and one which the entire city has been following ever since Juliet and Romeo announced their engagement. But _two_ such marriages? Rosaline is pretty sure that news sent more than a few gossip-friendly minds into overdrive.

Consequently, even though the Montague patriarch's invitation to their celebratory dinner went out on such short notice that most people would consider it unacceptably rude, not one invitation was declined. Every single one of the very rich, very important, and no doubt very busy people Benvolio's uncle invited has agreed to come and gawk at them. And only a mere few hours before the start of the dinner does it occur to Rosaline that all those people will be watching them like hawks - and somehow, Benvolio and her will have to convince them that they really are "madly" in love. And she won't even have Livia there for support, because her little sister has to work a late shift that night.

She's not proud of it, but the thought leads Rosaline into a panic that ends with a phone call to Benvolio.

To his credit, he picks up immediately, and doesn't outright laugh when she explains her worry.

"Why wouldn't they believe us?" He only asks calmly once she's done blurting out her frantic thoughts.

"Why _would_ they?"

"Because this is not the kind of stuff people usually lie about, unless there's a green card involved. And since we're both already citizens, I'm pretty sure that suspicion won't come up."

"You know what I mean. Why would they believe that we would be attracted to each other? We have nothing in common."

"Then it's an opposites attract sort of situation. It happens." He still sounds entirely too unconcerned, she thinks.

"You're certainly the opposite of everything I would be attracted to in a man," Rosaline grumbles.

"Then if anyone asks, just tell them that. You wanted to switch things up for once, and to your surprise, it worked. You'll barely even have to lie."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How are you going to convince them of your... feelings for me?"

"Don't worry, Capulet, I'll convince them. I convinced you to marry me, didn't I?"

That reminds her of something else that's been niggling at the back of her mind.

"Why did you? Ask me to marry you, I mean."

He falls silent for several long breaths before he finally says:

"I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"That's romantic," Rosaline can't help but comment. She's not sure if she should laugh or cry about the fact that this is apparently her love life now – married to a man she at best disdains who proposed because “it seemed like a good idea at the time“.

"That's me, Capulet - a true romantic at heart." He chuckles. "To be honest though I think most of it was the thought that my uncle would freak out about it. Of course, that backfired rather spectacularly..." he drifts off, voice taking on a wistful note, and suddenly he sounds like he did at that café yesterday – full of regret and self-loathing and fear.

And just like yesterday, it gets to her.

"I guess I can come up with some bullshit about being swept off my feet by your romantic ways," she says, more determined now that she's been reminded of the stakes involved in this little charade.

"That's the spirit, Capulet. And I'll have you know, I'm an expert at sweeping ladies off their feet."

"It's not 'sweeping someone off their feet' if it requires Tequila", she reminds him, putting her phone on loudspeaker to set it next to her on the sink as she begins to work on her make-up. "You told your uncle we were already a... thing before we eloped, right? So what's our story?"

"Well, I've learned that the best lie is one that's as close to the truth as possible..."

"Where the hell did you learn that?"

"Those negotiation seminars my uncle keeps sending me to. Apparently, I'm a soft negotiator. And not good enough at lying."

"You'd think that would be a good thing."

"You would, wouldn't you?" He chuckles, so softly she almost misses it as she begins puttering about. "Anyway, the story closest to the truth would be this: We met when we were made best man and maid of honor at our cousins' wedding. It took us some time to warm up to each other, but eventually I found myself awed by your military-style organisational skills, and you fell for my whimsical gift ideas."

"That sounds terribly cheesy."

"Yes. Everyone will love it."

Rosaline rolls her eyes, then forbids herself all further grimacing as she turns her attention to her eyeliner.

"Listen, Capulet, I have to go, I have a meeting. Just... don't worry about it too much, okay? You'll do great."

"If you say so," Rosaline deadpans back, still more than a little skeptical. Not to mention, Benvolio's earnest pep talk could not be more different from the way they used to be around each other. It still helps, however, as Rosaline feels a little bit of his optimism seep into her own mood, and she returns to the task of making herself look like she's glowing with newly-wed happiness with renewed vigor.

She quite enjoys getting dressed up, Rosaline finds - she hasn't really made much of an effort lately, but it's nice to see that whatever personal humiliations she had to suffer, she can still rock an updo, a pair of gold earrings, and the exquisite gold-and-turquoise dress Livia talked her into wearing, once Rosaline convinced her to support the whole crazy scheme. It is without a doubt the most elegant thing she owns, floor-length and figure-hugging and made of shimmering silk, and it makes her skin glow and her back straighten as if pulled up by an invisible hand. In short, it makes her look amazing, and Rosaline realises she missed this: going out and feeling good about herself, confident and beautiful.

The feeling manages to stick with her until the car Benvolio sends as promised picks her up to take her to the restaurant - and then threatens to evaporate within seconds of her arrival.

Because the first people she meets right outside the restaurant are her aunt and uncle, who have yet to comment on the news of her getting married, no matter how fake. But apparently, while it was too much effort to simply pick up the phone and call her to congratulate, it is not too much to come to this extremely rushed dinner appointment – provided there are enough important people present.

And even then, a simple "Congratulations" seems too much to ask for.

"Please tell me you're not pregnant," her uncle says by way of greeting, making sure Rosaline is already on edge before they've even entered the restaurant.

"I'm not pregnant," she says, forcing a smile through gritted teeth, then turns to her aunt to greet her too. Of course, her aunt just uses the opportunity to pile on more insulting suggestions.

"Perhaps you should consider it, to make sure this one actually sticks around."

She should be used to it by now, and yet her aunt's constant open disdain, her demonstrative dissatisfaction with everything Rosaline does, still always gives her a painful little shock, like being splashed with very cold water without a warning.

"Actually, we decided to wait a while until we have children," a familiar voice rings out before Rosaline can grit her teeth and change the subject, and suddenly Benvolio is standing next to her, one hand warm and steadying on her back as he brushes a kiss to her cheek. To her credit, Rosaline manages not to flinch, which bodes well for the rest of the evening. 

"I'm sorry I couldn't pick you up myself, but I had a late meeting," he says softly, every inch the devoted husband, and Rosaline thinks that the best approach to this whole thing will probably be to pretend that she stepped into some sort of alternate dimension where this is all perfectly normal.

Benvolio lets go of her to step forward and affectedly kiss her aunt on both cheeks, then shake her uncle's hand heartily. "It's so lovely you could make it. I told my uncle it was a little short notice, but he just could not wait to celebrate our wedding."

Rosaline watches in astonishment as Benvolio continues to lay on the charm, leaving her aunt and uncle defenseless unless they want to risk looking like complete assholes, especially since Benvolio has begun gently steering them all inside the restaurant.

"How about I take your coats while you go on ahead to our table?", Benvolio suggests, already gently tugging on her aunt's expensive white coat. Both her aunt and uncle yield their coats, and Benvolio sets off to the coat room while Rosaline leads them to their table, situated at the end of the room and easily recognisable by the fact that Juliet is already sitting there and waving at them wildly.

By the time they arrive at the table, Rosaline wishes fervently Benvolio would just chuck the coats in a corner and join her here _now_ , because if facing one side of the family was bad enough, facing both is just a lot more hostility than Rosaline generally likes to put up with.

Not that Benvolio's uncle is outright hostile to her, of course: Damiano Montague greets her with a warm smile and open arms – literally – to pull her into a hug with exaggeratedly demonstrated joy.

"My dear Rosaline, welcome to the family! And what a wonderful addition – two of the finest of this city's daughters, proud to take on the good Montague name."

Rosaline doesn't know what to focus on first: that it has apparently been decided that she'll take her "husband's" name, or that Damiano's Montague is capable of an expression of such unbridled joy as a _hug_.

Then again, neither the hug nor his words are for her benefit. When Rosaline draws back again, the elder Montague is looking at her uncle, with triumph glinting in his eyes. In their families, nothing is ever just about Rosaline or Juliet or Romeo or Benvolio – it's always about getting ahead of the competition, or if that can't be achieved, at least pissing them off.

Benvolio joins them in that moment, demonstrating his impeccable timing for a second time as he jumps right into the fray.

"Oh, Rosaline won't be taking my name. It's the 21st century after all, and Rosaline has her own career to think of."

Benvolio's uncle looks taken aback, but sadly not startled out of words entirely.

"I guess in the 21st century, couples apparently have no need anymore for traditions that have been valued for centuries."

"I'd say we don't need traditions that were just a byproduct of the systemic oppression of half the population," Benvolio replies, seemingly determined to see how far he can push the subject before his uncle snaps and calls off the dinner. It's one way to get out of it, Rosaline has to admit.

"Hear hear," says a female voice behind them, and Rosaline turns to look at a tall blonde woman, immaculately dressed and incredibly beautiful – and by her side, an all-too familiar face.

"Isabella?"

"Rosaline!" The second woman, smaller than her girlfriend and with dark hair instead of blonde and every inch as intimidatingly elegant and beautiful, steps forward to draw her into a hug. "I haven't seen you in ages, and now _this_!" Rosaline nervously wonders what exactly Isabella thinks about the news of her sudden marriage. Her friend is nothing if now shrewd, and if there's anyone she'd trust to figure out the deception, it would be Isabella.

But her friend smiles brightly, not a trace of mistrust on her face, and Rosaline remembers Benvolio's pep talk: People will believe them simply because there's no reason not to.

"Helena and I actually had other plans, but I badgered her into cancelling because I just had to come and congratulate you myself."

"And I'm very happy that you did!" Rosaline exclaims and means it. She always got along well with Escalus' sister, but since the break-up, they haven't had more contact than a few phone calls. Simply talking to Isabella had been too painful, too much of a reminder of her brother, and eventually, Rosaline had stopped answering Isabella's calls and only sent the occasional text. Now, she realises how stupid that was, and how much she missed the other woman.

Sure, there's a certain potential for awkwardness here - but then again, this evening was going to be plenty awkward even without having her ex-boyfriend's sister at the table.

Rosaline doesn't get a chance to talk further to Isabella as more guests arrive, belying Benvolio's description of the evening as an 'intimate' event. She knows some of the guests, the ones with ties to her uncle, but it's been a while since she saw them. After her parents caused a stir by going bankrupt, dying and running off, respectively, her uncle decided that Rosaline and Livia would not be representing the Capulet clan in the public eye, and they've since led fairly secluded lives. Part of it was perhaps to protect them, especially after the whole town was gossipping about nothing but their parents, but Rosaline still can't help but think that her uncle was all too eager to let her father be forgotten entirely, and everything he ever achieved in life be wiped out.

She forces her thoughts back to the present just in time to hear the end of Damiano's toast and raise her glass along with the others. A few sips of chilled champagne cool her head enough to remember that she has a job to do here, and Rosaline turns to Benvolio to clink her glass against his, accompanied by a sultry smile.

“Here's to us!” Another sip gives her the necessary push to lean into him and press a quick kiss to his lips, expressly forbidding her mind to compare it to the kisses they shared before in a hotel suite in Vegas. Whatever drove them back then was a fluke, a one-time thing, and the little tingle on her lips when she draws away is due to the champagne and nothing else.

Since everyone begins taking their places at the table behind them now, that's where Rosaline heads as well. Benvolio displays manners she never suspected him to possess by pulling out her chair for her, then he uses the opportunity to bend close when she sits down, and murmurs in her ear:

"Nice touch with the kiss. You're a natural at deception.”

Rosaline smiles brightly, not so much because of the dubious praise but to give off the impression of being flattered by whatever sweet words he just whispered into her ear. Benvolio takes his own place, then leans in once more while everyone is distracted by the arrival of a horde of waitstaff with hors d'oeuvres.

“And just so you know, I accidentally dropped your aunt's coat on my way to the coat room. Twice", he says, so low only she can hear it, and Rosaline looks up in surprise to find him smiling mischievously.

At her raised eyebrow, he shrugs with an innocent expression. "What can I say, it just slipped from my hands. Must be all that venom she poured out over you earlier."

Rosaline doesn't know what to say to that. Is he _defending_ her? A part of her wants to tell him to stay out of it, because she's dealt with this shit on her own for the past years and she's doing fine, thank you very much. But she can't quite bring herself to say so, not when he seems so pleased at his little act of petty revenge – not when he felt it his duty to enact revenge in her name in the first place.

She doesn't need to come up with a reply, however, because once everyone has finished their entrees, it doesn't take long for the first probing question to be directed at them. After all, that is what they all came for: to pry into her and Benvolio's personal business and get as many details as possible in order to impress their friends with fresh, hot gossip.

"As happy as we are for you, we were certainly surprised to hear the news that Benvolio got married," a woman who was earlier introduced as one of the Montagues' most important business partners opens the inquisition, "we had no idea he was even engaged!"

Rather than let the newlyweds in question answer the question themselves, Benvolio's uncle takes it upon himself to reply for them.

"Well, my nephew prides himself on being unconventional. Apparently, the young people consider it romantic."

It's a perfectly innocent statement, uttered in a perfectly friendly tone, but Rosaline knows all about scathing commentary disguised as innocent banter - and from the way Benvolio tenses next to her, she can tell that there's nothing friendly about his uncle's remark. She wonders, not for the first time, what went on when Benvolio's uncle found out about their little Vegas adventure; she can only imagine it was not exactly pretty.

"It was _terribly_ romantic," Rosaline says with a saccharine smile, and all heads at the table spin around to her, some with open surprise on their faces given that she's been fairly quiet so far.

"He proposed to me on the roof of our hotel at sunset," she begins to spin her yarn, not sure how to feel about the fact that it's not technically a lie, "with the strip just lighting up beneath us. " She pauses for a moment to stare dreamily into space and let the mental image really sink in. "It was magical."

There are soft sighs and "ahs" all around, and Rosaline continues, slowly getting into the swing of this whole “lying her ass off”-business.

"But to be honest," Rosaline leans forward conspiratorially, and a row of well-coiffured heads follow her movement, completely enthralled by her tall tale of young romance, "I do think he planned it a little bit." She holds out her hand, triumphantly showing off her wedding ring. "You don't get a ring like this at a Las Vegas convenience store."

There are awed gasps and murmurs of agreement at the blatant lie, and Rosaline shoots Benvolio a quick glance to find him looking at her with amusement, surprise, and something she thinks might be pride – although more likely it's just him doing his part to look like there's actual love happening here.

Still, Rosaline thinks, she's doing a hell of a job selling this thing. Across the table, Benvolio's uncle frowns into his crystal wine glass, seemingly annoyed at them for doing the very thing he expects them to do: charm their guests and convince them that their marriage isn't just the result of some dumb joke. Some people just can't be pleased, Rosaline thinks as her eyes move on to her aunt, and doesn't she know all about that.

"So now you know," she wraps up her story, "how Benvolio took something as ridiculous as a Vegas elopement," a quick jab at Romeo and Juliet that does not go unnoticed, judging by Juliet's glare and Romeo choking on a sip of champagne, "and turned it into the most romantic wedding you could ever imagine."

Her final summary is followed by another wave of "aahs" and happy little sighs around the table, as well as more than a few appreciative glances in Benvolio's direction. Clearly, his romantic side goes over well with their guests.

Smiling contentedly about what Rosaline considers a job well done, she leans back again, this time tilting sideways a little so instead of leaning against the back of her chair, she's resting lightly against Benvolio's shoulder. He takes the hint after a second of potential awkwardness, bringing his arm up to let it rest on the back of her chair and curl lightly over her shoulder.

"So you don't plan on getting properly married at all?", asks one of the guests, an older man who clearly seems to disapprove of the notion.

Before either of them can answer, Benvolio's uncle speaks up, jovial as always but with a hint of steel to his voice.

"Of course they will. They told me just yesterday that they've been thinking about a summer wedding, haven't you?"

Benvolio's hand tightens on her shoulder, and Rosaline quickly brings her free hand up to squeeze it lightly – a perfectly harmless affectionate gesture that shouldn't raise any eyebrows, but she hopes it will let him know that he doesn't have to suffer his uncle's tyranny alone.

"The key words being 'thinking about', of course," Rosaline replies smoothly. "I know it sounds selfish, but we really aren't sure about having a big reception. I'm aware that most people do, and I have no doubt it's the right choice for them, but we liked the idea of having a private little ceremony. Something that's about us, and no one else."

At the other end of the table, she thinks she sees Juliet stifle a smile – those were pretty much Romeo's exact words about why he wanted to elope. Who could have foreseen then that it wouldn't be the real happy, committed couple that would end up saying "I do" at a chapel in Vegas?

Benvolio's uncle, she can tell now, is struggling to keep his friendly expression in place, clearly unhappy about being defied like this in front of his guests. Well, he can be unhappy all he wants, but Rosaline is not going to let him make any more decisions about her and Benvolio's life. They're staying married for him, but she's not letting him dictate anything else about the situation. And she's sure as hell not letting him humiliate Benvolio in front of a bunch of people he has to work with. She raises her head just a little bit as she meets his eyes, holding his gaze long enough for him to understand her warning to back off, and miraculously, he does. Sort of.

"Again, I can't pretend to understand what it is young people consider romantic," the Montague patriarch says, all jocund warmth again, "but if it's what they want, it's what they want." He laughs, echoed by several more laughs around the table then turns to look at Rosaline's uncle. "Besides, I guess it would take a lot of financial strain off your family – after all, hosting two weddings so close together must be a quite the challenge."

The obvious dig at her uncle takes the guests' attention off of Rosaline, as her uncle hastens to pretend like he didn't have the exact same thought when the topic of a big wedding celebration was brought up. She leaves the two families' heads to their bickering and excuses herself to take a leisurely trip to the bathroom.

She wastes some time cooling her champagne-heated cheeks with cold water and fixing her hair, and just as she's about to head back, one of the guests from their table comes in; the older woman who was the first to express surprise about their marriage. Upon seeing Rosaline, casting a scrutinising look over her hairdo, she stops and smiles.

“No need to fret over your hair, child – you look beautiful, and no one will notice if there's a curl out of place somewhere. Your husband certainly won't.”

Heart sinking in her chest, Rosaline turns to look at her warily at the ominous words. She's suddenly struck by the fear that the woman has figured it all out, and that the next thing she'll say will be some remark about how their affection is obviously fake and their entire marriage an offensive sham.

“You're a lucky woman – my husband hasn't looked at me the way young Montague looks at you in a long time. He can barely take his eyes off you."  She winks conspiratorially. "You should enjoy being young and in love.”

With a smile, the woman walks past, giving her arm a friendly squeeze before she heads for the stalls.

Rosaline remains frozen in place for a moment, staring at her reflection in the mirror and trying to see it through the woman's eyes. Of course, what she should be taking away from the older woman's remarks is that their ruse is working, and Benvolio did indeed manage to convince their guests of his feelings.

But what actually rattles around inside Rosaline's head in that moment is a different thought: What if she really _was_ the woman their guests are seeing at their table tonight; beautiful and put-together and glowingly in love, with a husband who looks at her like she hung the moon? And if she already _looks_ like that woman, perhaps she could try to _be_ her as well; pretend to be happy and in love until she really feels one or both of those things.

For a moment, Rosaline imagines herself doing just that, studying her reflection and toying with her ring as she ponders the strange lure of the idea.

Then she shakes her head and turns to leave the bathroom.

What a ridiculous thought.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since there's been so much terribleness in the last episode (soo much!), I needed to write fuff. Just... A Lot of it. (With just a tiny hint of sadness.)  
> Warning: This chapter is at least 30% house porn. Possibly more.  
> Also, I have not forgotten about Mercutio. I've actually got a teensy little bit of backstory prepared for him, and perhaps an idea for how to introduce him into the story.  
> Also also, we're still pretending Paris has the potential to be an all-around swell dude and good boyfriend, okay? Okay.

The next weekend, Rosaline moves out of the apartment she loved with all her heart and can no longer afford - although for all intents and purposes, it looks as if her reason for moving out was a happy one, and life in general going well for her.

When she moved in, she did the whole thing with no one but Livia to help her, because her uncle was busy with a work thing, her aunt would rather give away every single one of her designer purses than lift a finger to help, and Juliet coughed once at breakfast that morning and was promptly forbidden from helping as well.

The move was a nightmare, with Rosaline, mere weeks after finally getting her drivers' license, constantly killing the motor of the rented truck and Livia next to her waxing poetic about some boy at school instead of helping her to navigate traffic, as she was _supposed_ to be doing.

They survived the day, but only just barely.

Today, she was greeted at six am by a smiling Juliet; with Romeo, Benvolio, and a cup of strong coffee in tow. Livia and her boyfriend followed right on their heels with a rented truck Rosaline won't have to drive herself this time, and now she's got three men and Livia (who is freakishily strong considering her tiny size) casually juggling her furniture around while Juliet keeps busy carrying the occasional potted plant or winter coat, and all Rosaline has to do is label boxes and point at various items and order everyone around.

Still, even though the sun is shining and she has to take care of exactly nothing about this entire hassle and her neighbours keep coming up to congratulate her on getting married (still a very weird experience), Rosaline can't help but feel a little downtrodden. And when the house is finally empty and the truck astonishingly full, she's standing in what used to be her bedroom, staring at the wall Escalus helped her paint a bright cerulean blue last summer and feeling like her heart is breaking all over again.

And yes, technically that chapter of her life ended weeks ago. But she hasn't really let go of it yet, or even attempted to do so. Now, as she looks around the apartment, she realises it's no wonder: the whole place is soaked in memories of Escalus; of evenings filled with wine and philosophical discussions and slow, tender sex and mornings in bed reading the paper together. They weren't even an item that long, barely a year, but it felt like it. It felt like they were  _meant_ to be, like their time spent together at her apartment (never his, because he lived too close to campus and was afraid they'd be seen together) was only a rehearsal for a time when they could really, openly _be_ together. Except that time never came, and when push came to shove, Escalus wasn't even willing to fight for the little bit of hidden happiness they had.

And that, she thinks as she grabs one last framed picture off the wall (her family on their last happy vacation, smiling on a beach), is exactly what she needs to remember: not the good times, but the fact that they weren't enough.

A sharp rap on the doorframe startles her out of her thoughts, and she turns to find Benvolio at the door, watching her with an inscrutable expression.

"You done here? Then I'll ride ahead in the truck with Paris, and you can follow in Juliet's car."

"Yes, I'm all done," Rosaline replies, throat tight, and Benvolio seems to notice.

"Come on Capulet, enough with the long face. I might even let you have the good parking spot, if you ask nicely."

"I don't even have a car."

"Oh. Right." He falls silent for a moment, still studying her. "You don't have to do this, if you hate it so much. I'm sure we can come up with some excuse why we're not living together."

"I'd have to move out here anyway. It's either your place or back to my aunt and uncle, and my aunt would have a field day with that."

She's a little shocked about her own candidness - but then again, if she's going to live with the man and pretend to love him for a year or more, there's no point constructing a façade for him in addition to lying to all their acquaintances and parts of their families. Keeping that up would just require way too much energy.

"I'm glad to hear I'm rated above your aunt in your regard."

"Barely," she replies, but there's no bite behind it, and even a reluctant smile on her face, though one still laced with sadness.

"I get it, you know. Sometimes places aren't just places."

She nods, a little surprised by the insight, and by the completely earnest tone in which he shares it.

"Yes, that's it, I guess. But then," she pulls herself together, tightens her grip on the picture frame, and marches to the door, "this one didn't exactly bring me much luck."

If Benvolio has any insights to share about that, he keeps them to himself, only following her outside and pulling the door closed behind them.

"I'll see you at home then," he says, then jogs off to climb into the truck beside Paris, and Rosaline wonders if his casual use of the word "home" was intended to poke fun at their situation, or if it just slipped out automatically.

In any case, the descriptor is more than accurate. It may not be her home yet, but Benvolio's house definitely has the potential to become one.

She's not entirely sure what she expected - probably some sort of penthouse with lots of steel and glass end exposed concrete, the kind of place that is referred to as a "bachelor pad" and has features intended specifically to seduce its owner's female conquests.

What she actually sees when she gets out of Juliet's car could not be more different. It's a russet-colored little townhouse, two stories high and so narrow it looks like it barely managed to squeeze in between its neighbors. There's a set of stone steps leading up to the front door and an alcove window on the first floor and wrought-iron flower boxes under the windows, which look pretty even though all the flowers in them seem a little scraggly.

It's... _cute._

Benvolio greets her at the top of the stairs, wiping sweat from his brow and looking decidedly awkward.

"Well, this is it."

Rosaline is still too surprised for words - but unfortunately, Romeo is not.

"Dude, you're supposed to carry her over the threshold, bridal style. Everything else is bad luck."

For one heartstopping moment, Benvolio grins cheekily, and Rosaline thinks he'll actually do it.

"Don't you dare!", she hisses and squeezes past him into the house. "So, do I get a tour?"

Inside, the house is decidedly not _cute_ \- it's _gorgeous_. It looks like it belongs on one of those insufferable lifestyle blogs where everything is off-white and vintage and whimsically cluttered in a way Rosaline didn't think normal human beings could actually achieve in their homes.

The living-room has exposed wooden beams and a very soft-looking leather couch and a reading nook in the window with a padded bench running along the windowsill. The kitchen is all gleaming steel and glazed tiles, with a door leading out to a secluded little backyard, just big enough for a set of patio chairs and a single deck-chair on the small patch of grass. And the bathroom, when they make it upstairs, has one of those black-and-white chessboard floors and an actual _clawfoot tub_.

By the time they return to the downstairs hallway because there's still more than enough actual work to do, Rosaline is in love.

"Holy shit, Montague, who the hell did you kill to get your hands on this gem of a house?", she blurts out, completely blown away.

Behind Benvolio, Juliet turns pale and Romeo looks horrified, and Rosaline immediately realises that somehow, she just made a big mistake.

"It was my parents' house," he says, voice terse and clipped, then pushes past her in the hallway without even pausing. Before she can stop herself, Rosaline's hand shoots out to grab his arm and stop him in his tracks.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

"I know you didn't. It's fine." He doesn't sound like he's fine, and he immediately retreats outside and spends the next half hour lugging things in from the truck in grim silence, but Rosaline doesn't dare broach the subject again. She doesn't particularly like talking about her parents either, and she can respect that the last person he'd want to talk to about them would be her.

Still, the information changes the way she looks at the house. Instead of only seeing the perfect setting for a lifestyle magazine photo-shoot, she's starting to actively look for signs that this was a family home once - and finds none whatsoever.

Of course, she can't expect the house to look exactly the way it did when he lived here with his parents - they've been dead for more than twenty years, so the house must have been in other hands at some point, erasing all traces from the way it must have looked when Benvolio lived here as a child.

But the expectations that come with the mental image make her notice all the things she didn't realise before: that the stylish sparseness of some of the rooms is perhaps less a design choice and more of a sign that he simply doesn't spend all that much time here, or didn't have a chance to properly make the house his in the way people usually do; by spreading out and leaving little knick-knacks everywhere, both functional and decorative. By hanging up pictures on the walls and having a tin of biscuits next to the coffee maker for spontaneous visitors and making the couch even more inviting with some throw pillows and a fluffy blanket. None of these are things she sees happening here.

Of course, some of the more glaringly empty spaces are probably owed to his effort to make room for her, as they decided he should when they planned her move earlier in the week. Benvolio had reassured her there would be space enough to store those of her things she wouldn't need, but Juliet had reminded them that she probably shouldn't store away everything. Being in happy and committed relationships apparently predisposes their cousins, Livia, and her boyfriend to act as their official advisors on being in love. It makes for a lot of weird conversations but is definitely something they need, seeing as Rosaline's one serious relationship wasn't exactly conventional, and Benvolio's romantic history, as far as she knows, consists solely of one-night-stands and meaningless relationships.

So Juliet's advice during their planning session was not exactly unwelcome.

"It's going to have to look like Rose really moved in for good. Like you're actually living there together and she isn't just renting your spare room."

"And trust me, that means she's going to be leaving her things around the apartment. The _whole_ apartment," Paris had added, looking comically resigned and earning himself a strict look from Livia when it seemed like he was complaining about their own recent merge of households. Which, he hastened to stress, he was definitely _not_. "Just an observation."

In any case, Rosaline packed accordingly, and Benvolio seems to have heeded the advice too: There are several empty bookshelves in the living-room, enough space for Rosalie's half of their grandmother's good china in the kitchen cabinets, and since the bathroom has two sinks anyway, there's plenty of room for her things there as well.

But for now, she's concentrating on her own room anyway. It's just an empty white rectangular space at the moment, quickly filling up with boxes and half-assembled furniture, but it's spacious and there are two windows to the street letting in plenty of light, and Rosaline finds there's really nothing to complain about.

"It's not as big as the other bedroom, but it's got good proportions, and plenty of natural light...", Benvolio explains when he steps into the room behind her, sounding almost defensive. "And I didn't get around to painting it, but I figured maybe you'd like to choose a color for-"

"Montague?", she interrupts his flood of words before she can feel touched by the fact that it almost seems as if he's worried she won't like the room. "Its great. Thanks for clearing it out for me."

Which reminds her of something, actually.

"What did you use it for before?"

"To draw mostly. Like I said, it's got good light."

"You draw?"

"I majored in architecture. Even if most of the planning is done digitally these days, we still learn how to draw. Not that I've done much drawing lately," he adds wistfully.

Rosaline is about to ask what he draws when the door bangs open and Romeo barges in, teetering under the weight of an enormous box – the first box of books she packed before she realised that if you fill an entire big carton full of hardcover books, that carton will either fall apart, or kill someone. Right now, it seems it's trying to kill Romeo, and she jumps forward to help him balance it at the same time as Benvolio does. They end up awkwardly and six-handedly setting down the box, and Romeo glares at her as angrily as someone with the general air of a puppy _can_ glare – which is not very angry at all, really.

“Jesus Christ Rose, have you heard of paperbacks? Or better yet, e-books?“

“Or better yet, packing sensibly?“, Benvolio adds, apparently unable to resist the dig, but Rosaline only rolls her eyes and begins to push and shove at the box on her own trying to manoeuver it to the corner furthest from her. It doesn't budge much, not until Benvolio steps up next to her and helps.

Livia and Paris appear with parts of her bed to assemble just then, and next it's her desk and a bookcase and a whole lot of other stuff. It soon gets a little crowded with six people in the room, even as big as it is, but with everyone working hand in hand, the room is soon turned into a fully inhabitable bedroom, and Juliet even manages to locate some sheets and make her bed, which is beginning to look awfully inviting by now.

Luckily, at this point there's nothing left to do but push a few boxes in a few corners, with Benvolio grumbling about how the hell she managed to have so much stuff in her small apartment, and Rosaline promising that she'll unpack them soon – but not without rolling her eyes at his grumbling first, of course.

The house empties out soon enough after that, everyone declining to stay for more than one of the beers Benvolio passes out to celebrate a successful moving day. But it's getting late and Paris wants to return the truck to the rental agency, and him and Livia taking off prompts Romeo and Juliet to take off as well.

There's a flurry of hugs and goodbyes and thank-you's, and then the door slams shut and Rosaline is alone with Benvolio in the suddenly quiet house, with this the strange new life she's been plopped down in and this house she's apparently supposed to call her home now.

There's an awkward pause, then Benvolio gets to his feet, yawns and stretches until she can hear his joints pop.

“Alright, I'm turning in. I'll be quick so you can shower after."

He doesn't offer to let her shower first, so she guesses the time of chivalry is past - but to be fair, he also did a lot more heavy lifting and worked up quite a sweat. It's only fair to let him go first.

Rosaline nods in acknowledgment and, not knowing what else to say, adds:

"Goodnight, Montague."

Benvolio turns around in the doorway, looking surprised for a moment. Then he smiles softly.

"Goodnight, Capulet."

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is awkward, but I completely forgot to mention last chapter that Benvolio's house has a backyard, because it's perfect. So I shoehorned a half-sentence about it into the last chapter, and I'm telling you now so that you don't have to go back and look for it: There's a backyard leading off from the kitchen, and it's tiny and secluded and there's just enough space for some chairs, a table and a deck-chair. Now you know, and we can all pretend this embarrassing mishap never happened.  
> Also, this chapter was supposed to have a second part, but then I realised I can post it without the second part, so being the shameless posting-addict that I am, that's what I did.  
> Also, this is a weird chapter but @tryalittlejoytomorrow told me it was okay (and also helped me work out a bunch of stuff because she's grand).

Being married to Benvolio Montague, it turns out, is not as horrible as Rosaline feared.

For one thing, she barely ever sees him, because Benvolio works insane hours. Most days he's gone before she wakes up, and she often hears the door open to indicate his return as late as ten at night. Of course, he could be spending his evenings going out, having drinks with colleagues after work – but whenever she runs into him upon his late returns, he's still wearing his suit and tie and looking tense and exhausted, and she finds it unlikely that he'd return like this from after-work drinks.

The discovery that Benvolio isn't quite the lazy party-bro she always assumed is a startling one, although it seems the sheer amount of work wasn't always this high. At least, that's what she understands when Romeo and Juliet come over for a little barbecue in the backyard one Sunday and Romeo complains that his cousin never has time to hang out anymore – not without getting a little teasing in, of course.

“I get that married life is keeping you busy, but come on – we haven't even had a beer in ages.”

“It's not _married life_ that's keeping me busy, it's your Dad,” Benvolio replies, keeping his eyes fixed on the barbecue before him with unnecessarily staunch concentration. “But I'll see about getting that beer some time soon.”

Romeo claps him on the back, satisfied with the answer, but Rosaline thinks Benvolio sounded less like he agreed to have a beer some time and more like they just made plans to get all their teeth pulled out with rusty pliers. And suddenly she feels it again, that flash of compassion that got her into this situation in the first place. More than compassion, really: Rosaline feels pity for him, standing there with bags under his eyes and a slump in his posture and looking like he wants to do nothing more than crawl back into bed in the middle of this bright, sunny Sunday.

Impulsively, she walks over to Benvolio and gently takes the barbecue tongs from his hand.

“Let me take care of this, Montague," she says, sighing deeply to communicate that she's not happy about having to take over. "You're probably going to burn it all to a crisp."

He doesn't even protest when she takes his shoulders and gently pushes him towards the deck-chair, which only confirms that he did indeed need a nap, or five.

By the time Rosaline takes the steaks off the grill and Romeo has finished dressing the salad, Benvolio is fast asleep.

After that Sunday, Rosaline makes it a habit to make a little extra when she cooks for herself and leave it out for him in the evenings, and more often than not, it's gone in the morning. It may not be much, but maybe not having to prepare something to eat when he comes home after a twelve-hour-workday helps to take just a little bit of strain off him.

Since she's already cooking, it's just convenient to also do all the grocery shopping for both of them – although that choice takes some adjustment for both of them. Used as she has become to keeping her money together, Rosaline immediately abandons some of the more luxurious items in Benvolio's fridge in favor of buying everything in the cheapest quality, not anticipating that her decision will trigger the first quarrel of their married life, and that it will be about cream cheese, of all things.

Her accidental husband, Rosaline learns, has quite the refined palate, and one that will not accept off-brand groceries, and in fact feels so strongly about this matter that when he confronts her about it, he can't even wait for her to wake up and come down to the kitchen on Saturday. Instead, he bursts into her room, wearing sweaty workout gear from his morning run and brandishing the packet of cream cheese she bought yesterday.

“What is _this_?”, he asks accusingly, much too loud for the early hour.

“Cream cheese,” Rosaline mumbles sleepily once she has identified what exactly he's holding out. “You can put it on bread, or on a bagel...”

“I know what it's _for_. Why is it _off-brand_?”

“Because it's cheaper.”

“I get two proper breakfasts a week. Do you think I care about what my food costs when I barely even get to eat it?”

“You know it's most likely the exact same product, right? They just put it in prettier packaging and market it more aggressively and somehow, that justifies making us pay three times as much.”

Resigning herself to the fact that Benvolio and his stupid cream cheese aren't going anywhere, Rosaline climbs out of bed. She didn't intend to do so for at least another hour, but she's not going to have this conversation with him looming over her like some sweaty, angry giant.

And just in time, too, for Rosaline has barely gotten to her feet when he takes a few quick steps closer and brings his face close to hers to growl, painstakingly enunciated:

“It's. Not. The. Same.”

Rosaline doesn't know whether to get angry, the natural reaction to a Montague getting all up in her personal space at eight in the morning on a Saturday, or laughing because this conversation is just so very ridiculous.

She settles on the latter, chuckling a little before she smiles teasingly in his face.

“I had no idea you had such strong feelings about _cream cheese,_ Montague.”

By now, the tension has eased out of him and he takes a step back, apparently noticing that he did perhaps get a little worked up just now. Suddenly, he sounds almost resigned when he explains:

“I work sixty hours a week, Capulet. Let me have my pleasures and just buy the expensive brand, please?”

“You are an _actual_ spoiled child, you know that? Now get your sweaty self out of my room.”

She continues to tease him about the incident for several more days, of course, but the next time Rosaline goes shopping, she makes sure to buy the exact brands she found in his fridge when she moved in.

Because he said “please”, she tells herself, and no other reason. Besides, she is spending _his_ money (a fact that still makes her more than a little uncomfortable) – if he wants her to waste it, that's his problem.

The shopping isn't the only thing Rosaline takes over in the weeks following their wedding. It makes sense, since she only works part-time and has plenty of time to kill, but still Rosaline feels a little weird when she realises that she's slowly but surely turning into a proper housewife, staying home to cook and clean while her husband rakes in the money. She'll defend anyone who chooses to live like this, sure – she just never expected it to be her lifestyle of choice. She always thought she'd be devoting herself to her research, and she does indeed miss it – but she's also not ready to return to it yet.

She tried, half-heartedly, but so far, Rosaline hasn't managed to bring herself to even unpack her materials, let alone open any of the documents with the notes and citations she painstakingly collected over the course of a year. But all of it is so closely intertwined with memories of Escalus that every time she looks at the stuff, anger and sadness threaten to overwhelm her and she quickly turns her attention to something else, like trying a ridiculously complicated new recipe or learning how to repot plants from youtube-tutorials.

So, for the time being, Rosaline cooks and cleans and does laundry and gets rid of the dead plants in the flower-boxes, and finds to her surprise that she enjoys doing all those things. She never really had much time for these kinds of domestic tasks before, and so cleaning meant doing the bare minimum to keep her apartment inhabitable and free of vermin. Cooking meant making scrambled eggs or macaroni and cheese or a salad if she was feeling particularly health-conscious. And “gardening” or “redecorating” were words that simply did not exist in her vocabulary.

She doesn't just cook and clean of course, because there isn't really all that much _to_ cook and clean in a household of two people, one of whom is never there, so much of her free time is also spent reading, just for fun instead of work. Curled up on the deck-chair in the garden or nestled in the reading nook, which is quickly becoming her favorite place in the house, Rosaline makes her way through trashy crime novels and gossip magazines and a big chunk of Benvolio's considerable collection of glossy hardcover architecture books. Really, she thinks during her better moments, comfy and lazy and sated on words, lying about her love life to a few people she doesn't even really like might just be worth it to live like this.

Eventually, even Benvolio catches on to everything she's doing around the house, even though it takes him an impressively long time (not that she can blame him). With that disarming earnestness of his, he tells her that she doesn't _have_ to do all of the chores; that he can help on the weekends, or hire someone to pick up his half of the work.

“Staying married wasn't just a ploy to have a live-in housekeeper I can exploit, you know. You don't have to feel obligated to do all that.”

"I know I don't _have_ to. But..." She isn't sure if she really wants to explain what's behind her sudden domesticity. But she also doesn't have the strength to pretend that this is all perfectly normal, and she herself perfectly fine. Besides, who cares what he thinks? It's not like Benvolio Montague has traditionally been very high on the list of people whose opinions she cares about. "I like it. It's... cathartic."

She resists the urge to look away in embarrassment; holding his eyes instead and silently daring him to judge her.

He doesn't.

"Well, I'm not going to complain," he shrugs, and stuffs another one of the muffins she made into his mouth. "Those are delicious."

That's that subject dealt with, and afterwards, Rosaline feels a little less weird about her current preoccupations.

And after all, it's not like she's the only one changing her behavior. Benvolio may not be home enough to make much of an impact, but he still makes little adjustments of his own, like taking the trash out with him when he leaves for work, leaving the newspaper carefully folded on the kitchen table instead of stuffing it in the wastepaper bin, or preparing enough coffee for both of them in the morning and leaving her portion on the coffee maker to stay hot until she wakes up.

Granted, that particular change only comes after several weeks of her waking up to find the kitchen smelling of coffee but the pot empty save for a few drops; until she makes a remark about this special form of torture when they have breakfast at the same time one Saturday. When Rosaline enters the kitchen the following Monday morning, there's a good mug-full of strong, steaming coffee left in the pot, and every day afterwards as well. It's a small gesture, one that doesn't require more than an extra minute of time, but it's nonetheless one that makes her mornings start out that much better.

Somehow, they slide into a routine like this, into the kind of settled domesticity that she's sure is the norm for millions of people around the world. And as alien as it feels to her, when she finds that another day has passed filled with mindless but pleasing household tasks and not a single negative thought, Rosaline thinks that maybe for now, this is exactly what she needs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not sure if everyone can relate to Rosaline's whole Stepford wives-phase, but I can promise you it will pass.


	7. Chapter 7

A little over an uneventful month into her marriage, Rosaline gets her first visitor in her new home. Well, her first visitor apart from Romeo and Juliet, who drop by at least once a week, presumably to make sure she and Benvolio haven't killed each other yet. But then Isabella calls out of the blue and announces that she's had an afternoon open up this very week and that she'd really like to see her, and Rosaline, in a fit of madness, invites her over for coffee.

It _seems_ like a good idea, because the house is already spotless and there's a new chocolate cake recipe she found online that she's been meaning to try. Plus, Benvolio's house isn't all that far from Isabella's office downtown, so it's not a big inconvenience for her to stop by. Isabella accepts immediately, no doubt half out of curiosity about some details of her friend's married life, and it's a date.

And then, two hours before Isabella is scheduled to arrive, it occurs to Rosaline that Isabella isn't just the first person to visit her here who isn't related to her or Benvolio in some way - she's also the first person who doesn't know, and cannot find out, the truth about their marriage.

Which means just like their story on the night of their celebratory dinner, the house has to hold up to the facade of their happy marriage, when in reality, it's barely more than a convenient roommate-situation.

But, Rosaline tells herself, if she managed to convince a table full of strangers that she fell head over heels for Benvolio's romantic shenanigans, she can convince one person of the same thing when she's got an entire house full of props to do so.

So Rosaline gets creative: She sets a stack of architecture magazines next to her books on the coffee table, leaving one on top with a bookmark sticking out of it - as if she and Benvolio regularly spent their evenings curled up on the sofa together, reading peacefully. She leaves post-it notes around the house, just a few in strategic, clearly visible places - a reminder to take out the trash near the front door, a scrawled _"we need milk (love u!)"_ on the fridge. She even unearths the framed printout of her status update photo from their night in Vegas that Romeo gave them as a joke and sets it on the mantelpiece, with a picture of all of them celebrating Juliet's birthday at the park next to it. She already had that one framed and in her room, although the fact that Benvolio is in it is accidental, and predates their marriage by quite some time.

Then, because Isabella will no doubt want a full tour of the house as well, Rosaline sets about transforming her bedroom into a guestroom and Benvolio's room into the master bedroom.

All of her personal belongings that can't be shoved inside the wardrobe or on the bookshelf go into a box to be stowed out of sight, with the exception of a handful of things she carries over into Benvolio's room: two books, her phone charger and a little alarm clock for the nightstand; a handful of clothes to be draped over the back of a chair. Both her own and Benvolio's blanket and pillow get a fresh set of matching sheets - luckily there actually is one set she has twice because it was on sale. For the final stroke of her masterpiece, Rosaline throws herself on the bed and rolls around, rumpling the fresh sheets enough to make both sides of the bed look recently slept in. Draping her best silk nightgown over the foot of the bed (they are newlyweds, after all), Rosaline nods in satisfaction.

Yes, she thinks, this looks like a room shared by two people. And then, with a little time left before Isabella gets here, Rosaline really looks around for the first time.

She only briefly glimpsed inside a few times before, and has never been able to take in more than the general lay-out – king-size bed, wardrobe, a desk by the windows. Unlike her room, Benvolio's is looking out over the garden, which means it's quieter but also has a little less natural light – although still enough to draw it seems, for the desk is littered with art supplies; pencils and sketch-pads and pastel chalks.

The room is sparsely decorated, the only ornamental element two framed architectural sketches hung up over the bed. One of them looks somewhat familiar, as if she'd seen the actual building somewhere. It's an attractive design, impressive without being domineering like so many similar office towers, but she still likes the other one better: Smaller and perhaps intended for private use, the house in the second design looks much more inviting, its harsh glass panes tempered by wood and greenery, the overall impression one of air and light and warmth. She makes a mental note to ask Benvolio about it soon, then turns her attention to his desk.

The messy desktop holds a few architectural studies too, but they all look abandoned, eraser smudges indicating that their creator wasn't satisfied with them. There are other sketches that he seems to have considered more successful, judging by their near-finished state: still lives and interiors, details of faces and even some pages on which she recognizes real people. There's a drawing of Juliet and Romeo which, though not quite finished, already looks amazingly lifelike and which would make a beautiful wedding gift (another mental note to bring the idea up later). She even discovers a sketch of a hand, slim and elegant with an ornate ring on one finger – and realises only after a moment that it's her own hand, her own wedding ring. She can't fathom when he would have had time to draw it – she certainly doesn't remember him drawing during the few hours they've spent together. He must have sketched it from memory, which she has to admit is impressive.

Her snooping is interrupted by the doorbell, and Rosaline hastens downstairs to open the door and greet her friend.

There are hugs and inquiries and chit-chat about this and that, and then Isabella, as expected, demands a tour of the house.

This is it then, the moment of truth, Rosaline thinks nervously as she leads the way upstairs. But Isabella doesn't ask anything beyond perfectly reasonable things like what year the house was built and which direction the bedroom windows are facing, and then declares that the house is "delightful". Coming from Isabella, who has never lived in any dwelling that could not with good conscience be described as "palatial", that is high praise indeed.

"Really, it's a perfect little love nest," Isabella concludes as they make their way downstairs again. Behind her, Rosaline almost misses a step and has to stop herself from pulling a face.

They decide to have coffee in the garden, and Isabella waits as Rosaline makes a fresh brew, watching her attentively.

"I have to say, I was a little surprised to hear the news of your wedding. It's only been a few months since things ended with you and Escalus, and I always got the impression you were getting pretty serious."

Rosaline promptly loses count of how much ground coffee she's put in the coffee maker but keeps heaping on more, desperate not to let on how much Isabella's observation unnerved her.

"I see what you mean – everything went so fast. And we really weren't planning on it, hadn't even talked about it before.“ She forces herself to stay calm, to stick to the version of the story she told at the wedding dinner. “But when we were sitting on that rooftop and he asked me to marry him, it just felt... right."

Isabella laughs softly. “Oh, I gathered that from the first time you told the story. It's just funny, because I distinctly remember you ranting about “that insufferable Montague” when Juliet and Romeo made you guys maid of honour and best man.”

Rosaline ducks her head and averts her eyes, hoping to look suitably bashful.

“Yes, well... Things have changed a bit since then.”

“I should hope so,” Isabella teases. It makes Rosaline hope for a quick end to this interrogation, but just in case Isabella's memories of the earlier interactions between Rosaline and her now-husband are still likely to make her ask more questions, Rosaline garnishes her story with a few more details.

“As much as I liked to rant about him though, I think I always knew, deep down, that he was a good guy.” Again, not technically a lie – for all her objections to Benvolio Montague, she found early on that for all his faults, he is loyal, and as bent on looking after Romeo as she is always looking out for her younger sister and cousin. She can't very well claim that as the reason she married him though, so Rosaline roots around for words of praise she won't risk choking on.

“And then it turned out he's so much more – kind and sweet and supportive and just... right for me.”

Now Isabella makes a face, though the grimace is teasingly exaggerated.

“He also managed to make you go all soft and mushy, I see.”

Rosaline sticks out her tongue in reply and turns her attention to the cake. If Isabella had any doubts about her surprise-marriage, Rosaline feels confident to have assuaged them.

Indeed, Isabella does not ask any more questions about the suddenness of this whole development, and soon they're sitting on the patio gorging themselves on cake and making up for lost time.

The cake turned out so well they both go for a second and even a third helping, the coffee Benvolio special-orders from a fair trade gourmet shop is flowing in rivers, and Rosaline can happily listen as Isabella recounts the latest drama playing out at her work, a highly competitive law firm. Isabella's tales from work are always rife with backstabbing and revenge, and Rosaline thinks she'd go mad at a place like this, but Isabella seems to thrive.

"So, once those two are done destroying each other," she finishes a story about two rival colleagues locked in mutual sabotage, "I'm next in line for a promotion to senior associate, so, fingers crossed."

"That's amazing! I hope it works out for you, and that no one tries to sabotage you."

"Let them try. They know I'd destroy them if they tried to pull any of that shit with me."

Rosaline doesn't doubt that statement for a second – Isabella has always been fierce enough to be just a little scary.

"But enough about me. What are _your_ plans? Are you returning to the university?"

Heavy with three pieces of chocolate cake, Rosaline's stomach plummets. She knows the question doesn't hold the judgement it would if it came from someone like her aunt - Isabella simply wants to know how she's doing. Still, Rosaline squirms as she looks for a way to not really answer.

"No. They've already found a replacement for me, once my contract ran out."

"That's too bad. Have you got something else lined up then?

"Not yet." Rosaline wonders if pushing a fourth piece of cake on her friend will end this torture. It seems unlikely.

"Anything in particular you're looking for?"

Another vague answer is already at the tip of her tongue when she hesitates. Rosaline has already lied to her friend about plenty of things today. Does she really want to add to that pile just to avoid touching on an uncomfortable subject?

She used to be braver than that.

"I'm not looking at all right now."

Isabella looks visibly taken aback for a moment.

"So what's the plan? You're going to be a full-time housewife?"

Rosaline is definitely not imagining it: Her friend, a firm believer in leaning in and smashing glass ceilings, is less than enthusiastic about her current lifestyle.

"I thought we were all about choice these days," Rosaline replies coolly, holding Isabella's stare.

"Of course we are. And don't get me wrong, your home is lovely and that cake was delicious. But I'm sure you didn't have to put yourself through college and grad school to stay home full-time."  
  
Rosaline raises a challenging eyebrow, and Isabella, apparently deciding not to let this escalate into a fight, sighs and lays a calming hand on her arm.  
  
"I am trying not to judge you. Of course it's your choice what you want to do with your time. It's just that you've always been so passionate about your research, I hate to see you turn your back on it."

"Well, your brother managed to put a damper on that passion, so maybe you should talk to him about that," Rosaline replies, a little sharper than intended.

Isabella remains unfazed.

"Why would I? This is _your_ life. You're going to let my brother keep you from doing something you loved? Come on, that's not the Rosaline Capulet I know."

Now it's Rosaline's turn to be stunned.

Over weeks of grieving first her relationship and then her job, of wondering whether or not to turn her back on both or fight for them, of missing her books and yet being unable to open them without a return of that pain, it never once occurred to her that maybe she should try and separate her work from Escalus.

Which is weird, because her work, her passion for philosophy and literature, was there long before she ever even met Escalus. Her thesis was fleshed-out before he became her adviser. She wanted to study and teach philosophy long before she wanted _him_ \- so why should that have changed?

"Rosaline?" Isabella's voice tears her out of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tear open old wounds. I thought you were over all of that."

A reasonable enough assumption, given that Rosaline is _supposed_ to be happily married to another man.

"I am." It's a lie of course, but one that comes easier than she expected. "I just... I needed a break. That's why I set it aside. But you're right - maybe I should think of returning to academia some day."

"See?" Isabella beams. "That's all I want - for you to think about your options, instead of settling for the most comfortable one."

"I'm not settling."

And maybe, Rosaline thinks, that can still turn into a true statement. Maybe, once she's done running away from the increasingly uncomfortable question of what the hell she wants to do with her life, Rosaline can actually look forward again, and find something to look forward _to_ \- whatever that something may end up being.

***

 

Isabella's phone dings to remind her of an evening appointment – going to the opera with Helena, she tells Rosaline excitedly – and her friend rushes off, but not without making Rosaline promise that they'll meet up again soon.

"And if you ever find yourself with too much cake on your hands, call me."

Rosaline laughs and promises to do so before closing the door after her friend. Her laughter fades quickly enough though: As much as Rosaline enjoyed seeing Isabella, the afternoon has also left her with plenty of food for thought.

Unfortunately, she doesn't get around to investigating her feelings on any of the topics Isabella, in her bold, no-nonsense way, brought up today: Just as she's finished putting away the cake and their dishes, the phone rings. It's Livia, ranting about the asshole doctors at her hospital who think they know better than her about everything, including tasks she does a million times a day.

Rosaline spends quite some time talking to her little sister, calming her down and cheering her up and encouraging her to think about studying medicine herself – something that Livia had considered after school but ultimately shied away from.

The question is not definitely settled but put aside for another day by the time Benvolio returns, giving her a short, tired wave from the hallway before he heads upstairs. Rosaline has just hung up the phone when there's a bang from upstairs followed by a surprised:

"What the hell?"

With a jolt, Rosaline remembers what she wanted to do before her little sister called: Erase the traces of her earlier redecorating efforts and put everything back the way it was _before_ Benvolio got home.

She hastens upstairs to explain and finds Benvolio in his room, confusedly staring at the mysteriously appeared items that definitely don't belong to him.

“Isabella came by this afternoon. I figured she'd want a tour of the house, and she'd have noticed immediately that we're sleeping in separate rooms. So I did a little stage dressing.”

“Oh.” The burst of irritation she heard in his voice just before deflates at her explanation. “Good thinking, making the house look a little more... couple-y. Did Isabella buy it?"

"She did. That horrible picture we made in Vegas helped too, maybe we should just leave it sitting on the mantelpiece, in case we get surprise guests."

He shrugs. "Fine by me." Then he begins gathering up her things from where she spread them out, pausing when he picks the nightgown off the bed.

"Wow, this is soft."

It is, Rosaline knows, because it's pure silk and possibly the most luxurious piece of clothing she owns. She bought it for the first night Escalus spent over at her place, which means she should probably have burned it already, but some stubborn part of her refused. It was insanely expensive, and she doesn't see why he should ruin this one little luxury for her too. So the nightgown stayed, and now she relishes wearing it just for herself. Provided, of course, that Benvolio gives it back at some point, which it doesn't look like he's about to do any time soon.

Instead, he's running his fingertips over the silk with an awed expression, his touch almost reverent. Rosaline watches him for a second, then suddenly realises she knows what it feels like when it's her _skin_ under his fingertips instead of just a piece of her clothing. Because his touch that night in Vegas, in between heated kisses and frantic fumbling-off of clothes, was just as gentle, just as rapturous – and enough to make goosebumps break out on her skin and impatience roar through her veins.

She snatches the nightgown out of his hands, though it's too late to stop the heat rising inside her.

Desperate for a distraction, Rosaline nods her head at the two sketches behind him on the wall.

“What are those? The one on the left looks familiar.”

“That's because you've seen it a million times downtown. It's Montague Plaza.”

Rosaline's mouth falls open in surprise. She sees it now, the familiar Montague company headquarters built more than fifteen years ago and still dominating the city center: the stark lines, the massive structure of the tower at the centre of the building, its brutal mass only inadequately balanced out by the oval of the lower entrance hall crouching in its shadow. She never particularly liked the building, iconic though it might have become in their city, but she could have if it looked like the design before her. The sketch, she decides upon further study, seems a lot more organic and balanced and a lot less like the steel-and-glass-equivalent of a dog marking its territory that is seat and symbol of the Montague's power today.

“It's different though.”

“Yes, because this is the original design. My uncle changed it a lot before it was actually built, but this was how my Dad imagined it.”

“Your Dad designed Montague Plaza?”

He nods. “It was the last big project he was working on.”

“And this is the original design?”

He smiles, quietly mischievous. "Nicked it from the company archives.”

“Is that where the second design is from as well?” Rosaline asks, though she thought the second design looked much more modern.

“No." Benvolio's reply comes out strangely hesitantly. “That's... that's one of mine, actually.”

Rosaline gasps. “ _You_ designed this?”

“What exactly did you think I meant when I said I majored in architecture?”

Rosaline shrugs, stepping closer to the bed to scrutinise the sketch more attentively than she did before.

“It's very... different from the usual Montague buildings.”

“I know, it's not quite as grand. Sorry to disappoint.”

“I'm not _disappointed_. Honestly, I like this one a lot more than those flashy phallic symbols you're building with your uncle. This looks like...” she studies the design again, the light, airy structure that looks like it should be built on the shore of a lake, or perhaps on a mountaintop, high above the world. “It looks like people could actually be at home there.”

When she looks over at Benvolio, a little embarrassed by her amateurish praise, he looks more than a little surprised, and she wonders why. Is she really this critical usually? Does he just expect her to hate everything he does? But then he seems to get over his surprise.

“My uncle didn't go into this business because he loves architecture. He builds in order to dominate the city, to leave his mark everywhere. Me...”, he shrugs. “I guess I just want to give people beautiful spaces to live in.”

"That's a good goal," Rosaline says, still struggling to wrap her mind around this Benvolio, serious and driven and dreaming of something bigger than the next wild night. "So why aren't you in the design division?"

"Because the architects don't call the shots. And _Montagues_ are where the shots are called.”

The last part of the sentence sounds like he's parroting his uncle, perhaps repeating an often-heard phrase, and Benvolio's expression is resigned as he says it. Clearly, his uncle has been shaping Benvolio's life even before he all but forced him to stay married for appearance's sake – and just as clearly, Benvolio does not want to pursue the topic any further.

“But I've dealt with Montague business all day, so let's not get into that right now.”

With that, he holds out the armful of her things he's gathered up and dumps them in her arms unceremoniously, a clear dismissal Rosaline can't even fault him for – he looks exhausted, as always, and probably just wants to go to bed.

Still, maybe he'll appreciate a little bedtime treat.

"Do you like chocolate cake?"

"What kind of question is that?", he replies, suddenly upset for who knows what kind of reason. "Who _doesn't_ like chocolate cake?"

Rosaline finds herself oddly relieved to realise he was just teasing her.

"Well, you're in for a treat."

Benvolio's reaction isn't quite as enthusiastic as she had hoped. "Can I take a shower first?"

"Yes, you ingrate," she chides, but with a gently teasing smile as she pushes past him, deposits her clothes and things in her room and heads downstairs to get him a piece of cake.

He's in the bathroom when she returns, so she just sets the plate on his bedside table and returns to her own room to put her things back. Ten minutes later, she hears the bathroom door open, his footsteps padding over to his own room, and then he calls over:

"Thanks, Capulet!"

Then, not five seconds later: " _Fuck_ , that's good cake."

Rosaline smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's a bit more backstory and Rosvolio fluff and discussions about feminism. Rosaline is (was) getting her PhD in philosophy, because I thought that that's something she might do.  
> I hope Isabella doesn't come across harsh or judgmental, but I feel like these kinds of questions and discussions often come up when it comes to the question of "having it all", and I didn't want everyone to be happy and harmonious all the time but actually clash about issues sometimes, and Isabella in particular would probably not hold back with her opinion. Plus, she did give Rosaline an idea that might be helpful in getting back into her research.  
> Also, just like we found out on the show that Rosaline and Benvolio actually have a lot more in common than they thought, they'll be dealing with pretty similar issues in this story too.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, have a new chapter! It features a new character appearance, shenanigans, drunkenness, and a whole bunch of stuff I'm not sure about, as always. This chapter is like, 90% dialogue and me trying to figure out how to write certain characters.

They get their second visitor soon after Isabella comes by, though this one doesn't exactly announce himself, and his visit almost ends in bloodshed about two minutes in.

It's one of the first really hot nights of the year, and Rosaline wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty and overheated, and goes downstairs to get herself something cold to drink.

She's just rooting around for the ice cube tray when a voice speaks up next to her - and it's not Benvolio's.

"Hey, I know you!"

Rosaline slams the freezer shut, takes one look at the man standing in the doorway to the hall, just a silhouette against the hallway light, and screams.

There's a crash from upstairs, followed by thundering footsteps on the stairs.

"Capulet?"

Rosaline stops screaming and searchingly pats along the counter to her right, not letting her eyes off the stranger. There's a knife block on that counter somewhere, and now that Benvolio is awake, they'll damn well be able to fight off one intruder between them.

It never gets to that, however.

The man raises his hands in surrender and takes a step backwards into the hallway - and in the light now falling on his face, Rosaline thinks he does look somewhat familiar.

"Whoa, relax...", the stranger begins, but is interrupted by Benvolio's arrival at the bottom of the stairs, wearing boxers and brandishing the iron poker they normally use to pull down the ladder to the attic.

"Mercutio?"

The stranger smirks and turns around, and the next moment Benvolio is hugging him, a big grin on his face. Now she feels a little silly for not recognising him, because of course she's met Mercutio before: He's the third Musketeer to Romeo and Benvolio, their friend who manages to be even richer, more prone to scandal, and more often drunk. She hasn't seen him in several months now because he's been off travelling to some exotic location, however, and even before, Rosaline didn't have much to do with him since he's not very involved in the wedding preparations.

"I had no idea you were coming back."

"I lost my phone and couldn't call ahead. Still, I was hoping for a slightly warmer welcome after returning from months of toil and travel."

"Weren't you partying in Bali?"

"Yes. But the trip home was very long, and I've been looking forward to a friendly face. And _this_ is what I get instead?"

Rosaline can't believe her ears. Is the man serious? She's tempted to grab that poker and whack him over the head herself, just for scaring her like this.

"Well maybe you shouldn't break into people's houses in the middle of the night then," she bites out, adrenaline making her aggressive.

"Its not breaking in if you have a spare key."

"He has a _spare key_?" Rosaline glares past the visitor at Benvolio. "And you didn't think to _mention_ that when I moved in?"

"Wait, you _live_ here?"

"Why else would I be hanging out here in the middle of the night?"

Mercutio smirks, and Rosaline immediately regrets the question when she realizes what he thought. 

"I can think of a few reasons. All of which are more plausible than you actually _living_ here." He looks at Benvolio. "So, what's the deal? Are you going long-term monogamous on me now too, like Romeo the traitor?"

Benvolio hesitates for a moment, then pushes past him towards Rosaline until he's standing behind her. And before Rosaline can ask what he's planning, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her into his chest. 

"We're married."

Mercutio's mouth falls open in shock, his eyes going comically wide, and Rosaline would feel a little vindicated for being scared out of her wits by him if... well, if Benvolio wasn't thoroughly distracting her from it. 

In her odd state between half-asleep and wide awake from the shock of seeing an intruder in her house, Rosaline finds it hard to process what's happening. She understands, on some rational level, that Benvolio is just trying to pull his friend's leg, resorting to the same fake displays of affection that fooled his uncle's business contacts at the dinner. But it's not a rational decision to play along that makes her lean back into his chest, warm against her thin pyjama top; that makes her breath hitch when he presses a kiss to the curve of her neck and goosebumps break out at the scratch of his beard across her skin.

Dimly, she's aware of Mercutio staring at them.

"Are you fucking serious? _Married_?!"

Benvolio lets the statement stand for a moment, then he laughs out loud. 

"Nah man, I'm just messing with you." He takes a step back, his hands sliding along her sides for a second before the contact breaks off. "I mean, technically, we are..."

"What."

"Well, we sort of got drunk in Vegas and decided to get married."

"I bet that went over well with your uncle."

"Swimmingly. He's the reason we're staying married, actually. You know, keep up appearances for the company."

"So you're serious about that."

"Dead serious. And as far as my uncle and pretty much anyone but our closest friends are concerned, we're like, super in love."

Mercutio stares at them for another long moment, eyes flitting back and forth between them as if waiting for Rosaline to dispute Benvolio's account.

It gives her a great amount of childish pleasure not to do so.

" _Madly_ in love. So far, we've been doing a pretty solid job making people believe it."

Mercutio studies her for a moment.

"You're Juliet's cousin, right? The maid of honor in that monstrous wedding they're planning?"

Rosaline nods, not sure where this is going.

"Didn't the two of you use to fight about, like, _everything_?"

"Well, we're not fighting anymore now," Benvolio explains with emphasis. "Seeing as we're _in love_."

"Except when some of us are being snobs about cream cheese," Rosaline can't stop herself from adding.

Benvolio looks at her exasperatedly.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

She's about to reply when Mercutio draws her attention once more, wildly waving his hands about with a somewhat hysterical expression.

"I don't understand what's _happening_ here. Why are we talking about cream cheese? Why have I not been equipped with some sort of alcoholic drink to deal with this whole situation? And what the fuck did you _do_ in Vegas?"

Stifling a laugh, Benvolio walks over, lays a hand on his friend's shoulder and guides him into the kitchen to sit him down. Then he takes out the bottle of good vodka chilling in the fridge and sets it on the table.

"You want a shot too, Capulet? This may not be all that easy to explain."

Few things seem less appealing to Rosaline right now than drinking vodka in the middle of the night while explaining to Benvolio's friend how they accidentally got married.

"Well, seeing as he's _your_ friend and I've been through this with both Juliet and Livia before, I don't see why I need to do any explaining at all."

"Come on, I so rarely get a chance to hear the female perspective on Ben's ill-fated affairs," Mercutio whines.

" _Ill-fated_?" Benvolio looks offended, but Mercutio ignores his protest, eyes still fixed on Rosaline. She has a feeling he's the kind of person who doesn't hear the word "No" all that often, and that just makes her all the more reluctant to grant his wish.

"The female perspective is this: I got completely shitfaced and woke up married."

A flicker of irritation hushes across Mercutio's face, which Rosaline finds deeply satisfying.

"So you two aren't....?"

"A thing? No. Not even a little bit." And before Benvolio can point out that that's not entirely true and that, for one night, they were a little bit of a thing indeed, Rosaline grabs her glass of water, overflowing with melted ice by now, and turns to leave. "And that is as much as I'll be able to contribute to the story, so I'll let you two catch up."

As she heads up the stairs to go back to bed, Mercutio's voice follows her up, still apparently trying to grasp the situation.

"Seriously though, _married_?"

Yes, Rosaline thinks, she's going to let Benvolio handle this and go to bed, which means she won't have to think about what prompted her to say yes that night, to return to his hotel room with him and do... everything she did there. She also won't have to think about how it's been surprisingly easy to make herself at home here, and surprisingly hard to hold on to old grudges when she sees him tired and downtrodden. And she definitely won't think about what the hell just happened when he put his hands on her and her heart beat faster than even a blast of adrenaline could justify. 

Nope. Rosaline is not going to think about any of these things, not now and not anytime soon if she can help it. 

***

 

Rosaline returns from her shift at the coffee shop the next day to find Benvolio and Mercutio in the garden, lounging about on the patio chairs and nursing glasses of what looks like... lemonade?

Benvolio turns his head when she appears in the door, giving her a hazy-eyed smile - it looks like the lemonade isn't _just_ lemonade.

"Ah, there's the wife." His eyes fall on her barista uniform. "I didn't know you were still working at that coffee shop."

"Is money still a thing people need to buy stuff?"

"I thought I was paying for everything around here."

"You're paying for groceries and living expenses. There's still clothes and books and personal hygiene to think of. Unless you want me to show up at your uncle's next dinner thing in sweatpants..."

"That would be one way to shock him, I guess", Benvolio chuckles to himself, then drains his glass of lemonade and gets up, still surprisingly steady on his feet.

She studies him as he lurches closer: He looks more relaxed than she's seen him in some time, clearly happy to have his friend here, but the dark smudges under his eyes remain, and he still looks paler than anyone should this far into the summer.

"You're home early," she observes. She expected to see Mercutio, since Benvolio texted her earlier in the day to ask if she was okay with having their friend stay for a few days until he found a more permanent place, but it's more than unusual to see Benvolio here this early in the day.

"Mercutio convinced my uncle to give me the afternoon off."

Mercutio grins lazily and mimes drawing his hat.

"Such is the power of belonging to a family the old man is desperate to wrangle into some sort of business relationship."

"So what are your plans for the evening?"

"Romeo and Juliet are coming over for a barbecue," Benvolio explains, then seems to think of something. "If you want to ask your sister and Paris to join, you can. I've bought plenty of meat. I'm preparing it now, so we should be ready to eat as soon as Mercutio gets off his ass and fires up the grill."

"Alright, alright." With a groan, Mercutio heaves himself to his feet. "You're so bossy when it comes to food."

Rosaline can attest to that - the cream cheese incident comes to mind immediately as a memorable example.

"Well, since I'll be preparing it, maybe you should stop whining and get to work.”

Mercutio makes a rude gesture but turns to the barbecue anyway.

"Anything I can do to help?" Rosaline asks.

"You can set the table," he says, in a slightly less commanding tone, and Rosaline follows him inside to do just that.

When she returns outside with a tray full of plates, glasses, cutlery and condiments, Mercutio is bent over the small heap of burning coal, blowing on it to get the fire to spread evenly.

"So," he says suddenly as she begins setting the table, "you two are married now."

"I thought Benvolio told you all about that by now."

"He did. And it's super weird, but if he thinks that's what he needs to do, then so be it. I just can't figure out what you're getting out of this."

Rosaline meets his eyes, well aware what he means.

"I get to live rent free and save a ton on expenses, if that's what you mean."

Mercutio looks momentarily surprised by her candidness, then continues with his interrogation.

"That's exactly what I mean. You see, my man Ben here is a great catch, and I'd hate to see someone catching him just for his money. Unlike me, he works hard for that shit."

To her annoyance, Rosaline finds herself reluctantly relating to Mercutio's protectiveness. She'd do the same thing if she was in his position and someone married her sister or her cousin for no apparent reason at all.

Still, she's not just going to let him accuse her of being some sort of gold digger.

"I know. And I don't intend to take advantage of it. But Benvolio's the one who came up with this plan. I'm just playing along as long as it takes to get his uncle off his back, and then he can go right back to letting himself get _caught_ by someone who actually intended to do so, and you can go judging _them_." She smiles sweetly and picks up the empy tray. "Anything else?"

Mercutio studies her for a moment.

"Nope, that's all. Just, you know," he makes a vaguely encompassing gesture, "don't break his heart, and all that."

Rosaline wonders if he even took in anything she just explained.

"That seems unlikely, given that, you know, it's all _fake_."

But Mercutio remains unfazed. "Yeah, well, you never know."

With that odd statement, he turns back to tend to his fire, and Rosaline returns inside, more than a little confused.

She's startled out of her confusion when Benvolio appears before her, holding out a spoon.

"Try this."

Before she can ask any further questions, the spoon is at her lips, and Rosaline automatically opens her mouth. She tastes sweet and fruity, then sharp and tangy and then sweet again; honey perhaps?

"It's a honey mustard vinaigrette, except I've tried it with this new raspberry mustard I found at the deli."

"It's good."

"Not too sweet?" He's still standing there with the spoon halfway to her mouth waiting for her feedback. But since everything went really fast and she didn't even know what she was supposed to be tasting, Rosaline didn't really have time to form an opinion.

"Let me try again."

There's still some vinaigrette left on the spoon, and Benvolio holds it out again so Rosaline can get another taste, slower this time and more thorough, savouring and exploring the taste in her mouth before Benvolio pulls away the spoon. 

"No, I think the vinegar balances it out." 

She licks her lips, chasing the last traces of sharp sweetness, and Benvolio watches her intently, his eyes flickering down to her mouth. Rosaline's breath catches in her throat when she notices it, then halts altogether as she counts the heartbeats until his gaze finds hers again - one... ... two... ... three... ... 

Benvolio clears his throat, looks up again and meets her eyes for only a second. Abruptly, he turns to the kitchen counter beside him.

"Thanks." He gives the finished vinaigrette a hasty stir with the whisk, then pours it over a huge bowl of mixed salad - lettuce and tomatoes and mushrooms and rocket - while Rosaline starts cutting the bread. Silence falls over the kitchen for a moment, pervasive enough for Rosaline to hear her own heart beating.

"So you've been having a nice day with Mercutio?" 

"Well, I didn't leave that early but, yeah, we've had some time to catch up." 

"That's good." Then, to stave off a return of that horrible silence, she keeps going: "Have you known each other long?"

"For ages. We went to school together, attended the same college - we've had some wild years." He laughs softly to himself. "Of course, now that all those pesky responsibilities have got me in their clutches, he always complains that I'm no fun anymore." 

"I don't complain nearly enough," Mercutio chimes up from the doorway. "I just want my best bud to live his best life." 

"You just want to make sure you have someone to drag you home so you don't wake up in a dumpster on some fishing boat again." 

Benvolio looks at Rosaline, eyes dancing with mirth. "True story."

"I'm not even sure I want the details." 

"Trust me, you don't", says Mercutio, face scrunched up as if the memory still pains him. "I tell you what though: we'll go out this weekend, and I promise I'll be the one in charge of getting us home. You can just let loose and party like it's 2012." 

"Like the world is ending?" Rosaline asks, and Mercutio winks at her exaggeratedly.

"Beautiful  _and_ smart!" He slings an arm around Benvolio's shoulder, ruffles his hair with rough affection. "Looks like you hit the jackpot." 

Rosaline rolls her eyes and picks up the bread basket to carry it outside - but not without noticing, out of the corner of her eye, that Benvolio seems flushed. 

Juliet and Romeo arrive soon after, Livia joins them without Paris who has other plans tonight, and soon they're all squeezed around the technically too-small patio table and stuffing themselves with steaks and salad. 

Between the excellent food, the warm evening, and Mercutio's special lemonade, spirits are high, and even Benvolio looks more relaxed than Rosaline has seen him in a while. In fact, she hasn't seen him this happy since Vegas, laughing and joking with his friends, smiling brightly and making sure everyone is well equipped with food and drink. 

Watching him, Romeo and Mercutio together is like seeing a puzzle completed; three pieces fitting perfectly together and making for one boisterous whole. Benvolio must have missed his friend, on top of not getting to spend much time with his cousin or anyone outside of work, and Rosaline finds herself thinking that he more than deserves this evening. 

Still, when Mercutio suggest they move on to a bar as the evening draws on and Juliet declines, it only makes sense to agree with her reasoning: 

"I'm not stopping the three of you from celebrating your happy reunion, but I sure as hell won't be anywhere nearby when it goes down."

The fact that not even Romeo protests more than a little tells her that the three prefer going out alone, and so the two Montagues and their prodigal friend set off as soon as the table is cleared. 

Rosaline, Livia and Juliet spend the rest of the evening in the garden, finishing off two bottles of Benvolio's best wine and taking the time to catch up - Livia's been busy with work and the second part of her advancement training, and Juliet is nearing finals and spending almost every free minute at the library. Benvolio's cosy garden, they all agree, provides more relaxation than any bar possibly could. 

"Honestly Rose, you should have moved in here much sooner. Having a garden is awesome." 

"Your _parents_ have a garden. And a pool." 

"Yeah, but I can't eat steak and get drunk there. My mom would chew my ear off about the calories." 

Both Rosaline and Livia roll their eyes, having been on the receiving end of enough speeches from their aunt to be able to sympathise. 

"Still, getting a garden shouldn't really be reason enough to marry someone." 

"Neither should being drunk, but here we are," Livia throws in teasingly, and Rosaline wonders what she ever did to deserve such a bratty sister. 

"Alright, that's it - I'm cutting you both off." 

"Aww, don't be like that," Juliet pouts, but a face-splitting yawn indicates that it might be time for last call indeed. 

Half an hour later, they've finished the last of the wine, and Rosaline is shooing her guests out the door. 

Juliet is already outside when she turns around on unsteady feet to say: 

"What did I tell you though? This whole thing really isn't that bad." 

"No," Rosaline admits, "it really isn't." 

Juliet beams.

Then she slips her hand through Livia's arm and the two stagger off into the night.

***

 

Much later, Rosaline is woken up by the sound of banging and cursing and what sounds a lot like giggling. Arming herself with the poker Benvolio so usefully demonstrated as a weapon, she sneaks out to peer down from the top of the stairs - and immediately lowers the poker again.

"What's going on down there?" She calls down to the entrance hall, where Mercutio is currently trying to wrestle a blind drunk Benvolio into the living-room. One look at the wrecked sight of him sends her right down the stairs.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"What _happened_? _You_ happened, and now he forgot how to have fun." Mercutio points an accusing finger at her. "You _broke_ him."

Rosaline raises an eyebrow. " _Excuse_ me?"

Mercutio doesn't get around to answering, as a sideways lurch from Benvolio threatens to send them both crashing into the shoe-rack. Deciding to take pity on them, not to mention protect the furniture from harm, Rosaline, quickly slips under Benvolio's shoulder on his other side to stabilise him, and together, they manage to heave him over the threshold into the living-room.

Once they've lowered him on the couch, Rosaline straightens up again, hands on her hips, to demand an explanation for Mercutio's reproach.

“Care to explain how I “broke“ him now?“

"Remember how we set out to have fun? Well, we did, for a while. We went to all of Ben's favorite places, trying to get him to loosen up a little bit. And then we run into an old flame of his, who immediately tries to hit on him again, which, awesome. So he goes off with her, Romeo and I high-five each other on a job well done, and half an hour later, we exit the club to find him sitting outside, completely smashed, ranting about monogamy." He lowers Benvolio on the couch, then turns to Rosaline once more. "Tell me, _Mrs. Montague_ , did your genius plan involve frickin' _celibacy_? Because I figured the whole "marriage" thing only extended to work events and the like. I didn't think you'd _actually_ turn him into a boring married person."

Rosaline is speechless with anger. So now _she's_ to be blamed for all of this? The fact that her genius of a husband apparently deals with stress by going out and hooking up with (and sometimes marrying) random women is somehow _her_ fault now?

Oh, she doesn't think so.

But before Rosaline can dish out a searing reply and tell him where he can stick his accusations, Benvolio pipes up from the sofa.

"It wasn't her idea. None of it was. And the monogamy... I figured, if we do this, we might as well do it right. No point risking gossip when we gave them such a good show at our wedding dinner."

"Do you hear that?" Mercutio asks, somehow even more enraged by what Rosaline thinks was a perfectly sensible explanation. "He's never been this committed to _anything_."

Now Rosaline gets angry on Benvolio's behalf as well as her own.

"That is bullshit; he's committed to plenty of things! His family, for one thing, and the company and his father's work. And since he's a grown-ass man who decided that he can handle getting married, I think he should be able to keep it in his pants for a few months."

With that, she turns and stalks off to the kitchen. She needs to get away from those two idiots if she doesn't want to end up committing double homicide but, well, if Benvolio doesn't want to wake up with the mother of all hangovers tomorrow, he's going to need some water. So Rosaline clangs and bangs around the ktichen angrily for a minute, almost breaking a glass in the process, and then returns only when she feels her temper simmer down a little bit.

She stops by the chest of drawers in the corridor, pretty sure that one of its cluttered drawers holds some aspirin. While she's rooting around for the little bottle of pills, Rosaline can clearly hear the conversation going on in the living-room:

"It's not Rosaline's fault, you know," Benvolio slurs.

Mercutio says something inaudible in return, and Rosaline stills in her movements to listen as Benvolio replies.

"She does help though. She makes it nice here." It's perhaps a questionable compliment, but Rosaline feels her anger soften a little nonetheless. "Plus, you should see her go up against my uncle. She's _magnificent_."

Now, Rosaline definitely has to stifle a smile before returning to the living-room. She didn't think standing up to Benvolio's domineering uncle was a big deal so much as a long-overdue show of resistance, but apparently, it impressed her husband.

She puts the glass of water in his hand more carefully than she went about filling it, then presses two aspirin pills in his other hand.

"Take these, and drink up all the water. You'll need it."

Pointedly ignoring Mercutio, Rosaline heads to the broom cupboard in the corridor to complete the "drunk husband emergency kit" with a bucket, which she sets down next to the sofa.

"If you're going to throw up, please make sure to use the bucket," is her instruction to Benvolio, who has by now gulped down the water and laid down on the sofa, curled up on his side and clutching one of the new throw pillows.

"Anything for my beloved," he slurs in reply, then his eyelids droop shut and he starts snoring almost instantly.

Rosaline cracks open a window so the whole room doesn't reek of alcohol when he wakes up, then takes the blanket from her reading nook and drapes it over him. The nights are warm these days,but it still gets chilly in the morning.

"Well then," Rosaline turns to Mercutio, startled to find him watching her, "unless there's anything else you want to blame me for, I'm going back to bed."

"I'm sorry about that," Mercutio says, with a tone that suggests the apology doesn't come easy to him. "I think I'm mostly angry at myself, for not noticing how badly he was doing. I've been off doing my thing, while one of my best friends is working himself to death."

"None of that is my fault though. I know Benvolio and I don't always get along, but I _have_ noticed that he's not doing great. And no matter what you might think, I don't enjoy seeing him suffer either."

Mercutio looks a little sheepish.

"I'm sure you don't. But you have to admit, it is a little strange to think that you'd care about him at all, seeing as you two could barely spend two minutes in the same room without bickering before I left."

He's not exactly _wrong_ , but Rosaline is tired and in no mood to defend herself for something that isn't her fault. Even if their marriage contributed to the tension between Benvolio and his uncle, that too was not her idea.

"Well, I _do_ care," she says like it's the most obvious thing in the world, with her head held high and her voice allowing no protest.

"I know," Mercutio says, voice suddenly soft, and only now does Rosaline realise how much her words sounded like a confession.

But then, really, there's nothing _to_ confess - she simply can't stand to see another person suffer, even if that person is Benvolio Montague.

"I'm going to bed; I'm sure Benvolio won't mind if you take his bed for the night. Just lock the front door and turn off the lights before you turn in."

Mercutio jumps to his feet, all seriousness forgotten as he makes a mock-salute.

"Will do, Ma'am."

Rosaline rolls her eyes and heads upstairs without another word. Living with one of those jokers is bad enough, but two of them? Her marriage may just end a lot sooner than they planned for. 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, new chapter finished just before I'm leaving on vacation! (And hopefully coming back full of new Rosvolio ideas!)  
> Shout-out to @tryalittlejoytomorrow, who had to listen to me whine about being unproductive at work and who may or may not yell at me about the glacial pace of this story. (They'll get there, I promise.)  
> Also, there's an amount of Renaissance era nerdery that some will find excessive and others superficial and badly researched (I had to dig deep into my 10th grade Italian art history memories), and both are probably right.

Mercutio is the kind of person who will breeze into people's lives and cause ripples that affect them in a dozen ways big and small – and the lives of Rosaline and Benvolio are no exception, even if a few days of relative peace and quiet had suggested otherwise.

But then news of Mercutio's return to town reach Benvolio's uncle, who immediately and insistently invites them all to a dinner that Benvolio has been trying to get out of for two weeks straight, as he told Rosaline just a week ago. Apparently now that Mercutio is staying with them, their attendance is no longer up for discussion, and Mercutio is to be brought along as a special guest.

When they get to the venue, they barely have time to take a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter's tray before the elder Montague is upon them to thoroughly meddle in their lives again, greeting Mercutio with an enthusiasm that Rosaline has never seen him display towards anyone else, most definitely not his own nephew.

“Mercutio! What a pleasure to have you back here with us! I trust you've had a good trip?”

“It's been a blast! Beach parties, jungle adventuring on elephant-back, diving in lagoons, and surprisingly few instances of food poisoning. What more can you ask for?”

“What more indeed,” Damiano agrees, trying to look like he has ever experienced any of the things Mercutio just listed, or ever intends to. “So, are you back in town for good? Where are you staying? Last I heard, your family was still summering at Cape Cod.”

“They are, and since they've opened the new branch in LA, all our bases here have been shut down indefinitely, even my own apartment. Luckily, Benvolio always has a place for me on the couch.”

As smooth and unflappable as Mercutio is when faced with Benvolio's uncle, Rosaline realises immediately that he just made a mistake. Damiano's eyes harden, the lines around his mouth tightening even as that jovial smile remains in place. It's apparent only to those in his immediate vicinity, but Damiano is not pleased.

"The  _couch_?" Damiano turns to Rosaline and Benvolio. "Don't you have a perfectly nice guest bedroom? Who's occupying that, some mystery guest I haven't been informed of?"

Occupying the perfectly nice "guest bedroom" is Rosaline, of course, but they can't very well tell Benvolios uncle that, even if he apparently considers it his right to be "informed" of what goes on at their house. Instead of making a pointed remark about that particular expectation, Rosaline does the sensible thing and roots around in her mind for an explanation. Unfortunately, put on the spot like this she can't come up with anything plausible apart from straight-up inventing a pregnancy, and that would just add new lies on top of their already precarious tower of bullshit.

Luckily, Benvolio has a less outrageous excuse.

"We just repainted the guest bedroom. We weren't sure it was safe to sleep in there yet," he explains, calm as you please.  _Bad liar my ass_ , Rosaline thinks to herself.

"Nonsense!" Damiano wipes away Benvolios fake concern. "Air it out for a day and it'll be fine!"

"We will, of course, " Rosaline says sweetly, aware that resistance would only arouse suspicions. "We just wanted to be sure."

Damiano Montague seems apparently satisfied and saunters off to greet someone else, but Benvolio looks worried.

"Looks like we have to move you off the sofa," he says to Mercutio, and the other man nods somberly.

"Oh come on, it's not like your uncle will come over to check."

"Have you  _met_ my uncle? He absolutely will find some excuse to come over and check that we're treating his honoured guest right. He's always been up Mercutio's ass."

"Gross, dude", Mercutio chides, but seeing Rosaline's skeptical expression, he nods. "Ben's right though. His uncle is like,  _obsessed_ with me."

"More like your family's connections," Benvolio corrects.

Those connections, Rosaline and everyone else knows, reach far into a range of lucrative industries, and deep into the kind of finances Montagues and Capulets combined can only dream of. The thing the family is most famous for is a chain of four-star hotels littering all continents save for the pole caps. Though their headquarters are based in New York, the family has ties to Verona Cove, and Damiano Montague has apparently set his sights on using those ties to bind Mercutio's family into his own ambitious plans - with no success so far. That doesn't stop him from trying though, and that apparently means treating Mercutio like royalty.

"Well, to save your fake marriage," Mercutio declares, and Rosaline looks around nervously to see if anyone heard him, "one of us will have to bite the bullet and move into Ben's room."

There's silence for a moment, Rosaline and Mercutio locked in a wordless battle of wills as neither wants to be the one to volunteer.

"Oh come on, it can't be that terrible to share a room with me for a few days," Benvolio eventually exclaims.

It's not, Rosaline knows, at least it wasn't the last (and only!) time she did, but she's not going to get them in a situation that resembles that night in  _any_ way.

"It wouldn't be, if you didn't always try to snuggle," Mercutio replies innocently, and Ben's face turns scarlet within seconds.

"That was  _one_  time, and I told you the bed had this weird hole in the middle that I kept sliding into."

“I'm not judging. I'm just saying,” he turns to Rosaline to wink at her, “your man needs a  _lot_  of love. You better be prepared to get the shit cuddled out of you.”

“Again, not true,” Benvolio says exasperatedly, though the color in his cheeks remains. “And if the two of you can't decide who will have to carry that terrible burden, it's off the sofa and out on the street for you, Merc.”

Mercutio huffs.

“You wouldn't.”

“Try me,” Benvolio growls, and really, this is beginning to get ridiculous. They're three grown people, they're going to be able to figure out how to share two big beds between them.

Mercutio apparently has the same thought.

“Let's handle this like adults,” he suggests, then holds out his closed fist. “Rock paper scissors?”

Benvolio rolls his eyes, but Rosaline figures it's as good a way of settling this as any.

“Three throws.”

Three throws later, Mercutio is grinning smugly, and Rosaline downs her champagne as she sets off towards the buffet. Apparently, she and her husband are going to get a whole lot closer soon.

***

 

For the rest of the evening, Rosaline tells herself it's not going to be a big deal to move into Benvolio's room, because so far, nothing's been a big deal, and really, how different can it be from already living together? Still, at some point she finds herself sneaking out of the restaurant to call her sister and ask for advice, like some teenager before her first date. She decides against it in the end and puts her phone away- the more she blows this out of proportion, the more awkward it's going to get later tonight. 

Rosaline does a pretty good job sticking to that decision, all the way until they're back home, and then moving into Benvolio's room is mostly a matter of logistics: getting her blanket and bedsheets to Benvolio's room and fresh sheets on her bed for Mercutio, packing a few essentials so she doesn't have to disturb him every time she needs so much as a pair of socks, bickering over who gets to sleep on which side of the bed.

But then the door closes behind them, and suddenly things are awkward again. 

Rosaline was the one who closed it after her, returning from getting changed and brushing her teeth, but she didn't expect the sound to reverberate with such finality, or the nervous flutter in her stomach when Benvolio looks over at her. He looks hesitant and almost worried for a second before he faces her fully, the corners of his mouth lifting teasingly.

"No silk nightgown tonight?" 

"I like to save the lingerie for my steamy extramarital affairs."

"Makes sense," he agrees, and manages to keep his expression straight for an impressively long time before they both burst into snorts of laughter. 

It's a relief replacing nervousness with silly jokes, and Rosaline climbs into bed with renewed determination to not turn this into a  _thing_. 

Benvolio seems to have made the same decision. 

"This doesn't have to be awkward, you know. Just think of it as a sleepover with the girls."

The suggestion is so absurd Rosaline has to laugh out loud. 

"Oh, you mean you're going to teach me silly songs and tell me super gross horror stories?"

Benvolio chuckles. "If it helps.” Then, after a beat: “Who used to tell the stories?"

"Livia. And she was  _brutal_. Like, her stories used to give me nightmares, they were so gory."

"Really? _Livia_?"

"She _did_ voluntarily choose a job where she's in close contact with blood and other bodily fluids all day."

"Good point." He falls silent momentarily, then: "Do you remember any of the stories?"  
  
Rosaline has to think hard for a moment, but then she thinks she remembers some details of Livia's worst story, one that gave her nightmares for months.

She may not get everything in the right order, but Benvolio is still entertained - interjecting when something mispleases him ("The murderer killed the  _dog_? That's just excessive!”) and even once shuddering so violently he makes the bed shake under them.

She finishes with a dramatically lowered voice, and this time when Benvolio shudders again she can feel it even better because his elbow is pressed against hers.

"Alright, that  _was_ brutal. Jesus Christ, I had no idea your little sister was so messed up."

"She also made me rent horror movies she wasn't allowed to watch yet. And then watch them with her. My parents were getting worried why I was having nightmares so often."

"I can see why. This stuff will definitely give you nightmares. Honestly, I'm a little afraid _I'll_  be getting them tonight."

"Aww, you need someone to hold you?"

"Are you offering?"

His reply is teasing, easy, just like her joke was, but then Rosaline makes the mistake of looking over at him. In the dim traces of light falling through the window behind her, she can see his face, now that her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and she sees the moment the thought forms in his head, the teasing smile slipping away as his eyes turn darker, wider – it's the same moment that very thought manifests in her own imagination: how little space there is between them, and how easy it would be to close it. How the near-darkness would, for a few moments, hide all her fears and insecurities, hide the fact that she's a Capulet and he a Montague and they both claimed to hate each other not too long ago. She wonders what he would do if she were the one to close that half an arms' length of space between them, but really, his eyes are already telling her the answer.

And then, when she's almost leaning in, the muscles in her arm already tightening to propel her over and set into motion events that would definitely make his a  _thing_ , he closes his eyes, and the spell breaks.

"I think I'll manage somehow."

With that, he turns his back on her abruptly.

"Goodnight, Capulet."

"Goodnight," Rosaline murmurs back, throat dry and chest strangely tight.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

***

 

Still, despite the inconvenience of lying awake next to Benvolio and trying not to think about what else they could be doing, or even worse, what they have done in the past, moving into Benvolio's room for the time being seems to have been the right choice: Just two days later, his uncle really does show up, ringing up a storm on Saturday morning and immediately checking out the living-room the second Rosaline has let him in, apparently looking for proof that they really moved their important guest off the couch and into a proper bedroom.

Rosaline refrains from rolling her eyes and instead forces herself to remain polite. She has a feeling that, as much fun as it would be to tell the Montague patriarch what she thinks of his controlling behavior, it's not her who would suffer for it.

"Damiano! What a surprise! What brings you here this morning?" Mercutio appears from the kitchen, where he was in the process of making actual, hand-whipped mousse au chocolat for breakfast, because Mercutio considers that perfectly acceptable breakfast food (and it's also, he claims, Benvolio's favorite dessert).

"Well, I..."

Rosaline hides a smirk. He can't very well admit that he came by just to check if his nephew is being a good host, can he now?

But unfortunately, the elder Montague came prepared, and is now brandishing a manila envelope.

"There's something I need Benvolio to look at for work."

Rosaline's moment of amusement disappears again, replaced by anger. She left Benvolio in bed, burrowed so deep into the covers there was nothing visible of him save for the top of his head and sleeping the deep, heavy sleep of someone truly exhausted. She's definitely not waking him up up from that just for whatever stupid excuse of a task Damiano came up with. 

"Oh no," Rosaline exclaims, theatrically disappointed, "is it very urgent? Because, you see, we were going to take Mercutio to see the new exhibit at the museum today, and Benvolio would hate to miss it."

Damiano looks skeptical, but Mercutio, catching on, nods eagerly.

"That's true, we've been looking forward to it all week. It's supposed to be a belated birthday present. Ben booked a special tour for us and everything."

Behind Damiano's back, Rosaline sends a little smile Mercutio's way, grateful for the support.

"Well," Damiano says, drawn-out and clearly reluctant, "I guess if it's that important to you, the work will have to wait until tomorrow."

"It really is," Mercutio says earnestly, then gently begins steering Benvolio's uncle towards the door - notably without taking the envelope from his hand.

Two minutes and a little bit of polite chitchat later, Damiano and his stupid envelope are out the door again.

"Well, he's still just as charming as he was before I left."

"He was always this bad?"

"Maybe not this controlling. But he's been on Ben's back at least since Romeo decided to do his writing thing instead of joining the company. And it seems your little Vegas wedding stunt did not soften him up one bit."

That explains a lot, Rosaline thinks.

"Shouldn't we do something about it then?"

"Like what, hire a hitman?" Mercutio says casually, walking back to the kitchen to continue his work on their breakfast dessert.

"I was thinking something a little more low-key," Rosaline replies and follows him. "I don't know, talk to Benvolio? Confront his uncle?"

But while she was sure to have Mercutio's support just a moment ago, now his face closes off as he shakes his head, and their moment of camaraderie passes.

"Ben doesn't want to talk about it. And any open criticism of Damiano will just make things worse for him. We need to stay out of this."

Rosaline very much disagrees. But before she can say so, footsteps on the stairs indicate that Benvolio has woken up, and Mercutio shoots her a warning glance.

Benvolio appears in the doorway a few moments later, looking dazed and dishevelled, and as much as Rosaline disagrees with Mercutio's approach to just do nothing, she has to admit it may not be the best idea to spring the topic on Benvolio first thing in the morning.

"What was that noise? Did I have a weird dream or did someone ring the doorbell like a maniac?" Benvolio asks sleepily, sitting down next to Rosaline and automatically taking the mug of coffee she slides over to him, topped up with cream and enough sugar to shock anyone's metabolism awake in the morning, the way she's seen him drink it before.

"That was your uncle, trying to dump some work stuff on you," Rosaline explains, ignoring the warning flash of Mercutio's eyes.

Benvolio tenses immediately, eyes flitting about the room as if he expects his uncle to still be hiding somewhere.

"Don't worry, we got rid of him," Mercutio explains. "Although now we have to spend a perfectly good Saturday going to a  _museum_ , because you and your dear wife are both incredible nerds. Although I guess we only have to spend enough time there to take a few selfies."

Benvolio shrugs. "Actually, I've been meaning to go see their new exhibition on Renaissance art."

"Me too!" Rosaline adds, surprised to find herself sharing an interest with Benvolio. "It's supposed to be really good."

Mercutio looks pained.

"Alright. But afterwards, we're doing something fun."

Benvolio promises as much, but in Rosaline's opinion, the "something fun" starts the moment they enter the exhibition after a leisurely breakfast.

The exhibit is well-curated, and more in-depth than she would have expected: a comprehensive look at the art, architecture, fashion and everyday craftsmanship of the Renaissance period, with explanations on the themes tying them all together. The only thing missing, she thinks, is a closer look at the philosophies behind the art pieces, the rediscovered theories of ancient thinkers that reshaped the world of the time. Of course, seeing as that's her area of study, Rosaline guesses that she may be a little bit biased here. Still, would it have killed them to hang up a few posters?

But when she says as much to Benvolio, he only shrugs.

"Why? It's all there in the exhibit."

Rosaline isn't convinced, so Benvolio takes her hand and pulls her along to a model of the cathedral in Florence.

"See, you've got your rediscovery of the antiquity right here, with classical proportions and a dome inspired by the Pantheon in Rome."

“Sure, that dome is a good example. But I don't think a few architectural models will be able to transport the full effect classical teachings had on the philosophy of the time.“

“I'm pretty sure not even a wall of text is going to be able to teach people everything  _you_  consider important,“ he says with a teasing smile. “But the average museum-visitor isn't exactly as demanding as you are when it comes to that, or as well-read.“

Rosaline narrows her eyes as she looks back from the model at him – but there's no trace of malice on his face, just a teasing smile, and she realises the compliment in his words is a compliment indeed, no matter how mischievously he said it.

A few more steps bring them to the next example: a series of sketches of other important buildings, all of them built in Florence during the Renaissance period. Rosaline recognizes some of them, for the names of others she has to refer to the little plaques beside them: the Palazzo Pitti, the Uffizi gallery, the Laurentian Library. Above each, a single word indicates what they stand for: Politics. Art. Education.

Benvolio ties the themes together:

"See, even the functions of the buildings show how rapidly things were changing at the time, how quickly civic society was gaining importance. It's not just churches anymore that were architectural masterpieces – you've got townhouses too, merchants' offices, libraries. The families ruling the Italian city states were becoming more and more powerful, and they wanted everyone to know."

Rosaline listens attentively as he points out more examples, her own mind racing along as she compares his thoughts to the things she knows about the era, and finds that they fit.

Slowly, they make their way to the next room, which is dedicated to portraits of people of the era - monarchs and merchants, scholars and craftswomen. Rosaline isn't completely convinced of his argument yet, but she has to admit she's curious to hear what he'll come up with next, and so she listens as he makes his point amidst the paintings – which, admittedly, he probably does know more about than she does.

"Even in the paintings of the time, you can see it," he says, pointing at portraits of long-dead people who nonetheless look as if they were standing right next to them. "Art got cheaper, so more and more people commissioned portraits. And they wanted to be shown as they really were, so artists refined and perfected more lifelike styles, through the use of realistic perspective for example."

"Humanism," Rosaline provides, beginning to see how the threads come together. “Man as the measure of all things.“

Benvolio nods, cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, and Rosaline can't help but smile back, pleasantly surprised to find she hasn't felt this intellectually stimulated in a long time. It's been a while since she looked at her beloved subject at all, and now she's suddenly seeing it from all kinds of different angles, sees its connections to other fields clearer than ever before, art and literature and society as a whole, and she finds it refreshing.

"I mean, I don't know nearly as much about the philosophy behind it as you do but," Benvolio shrugs. "What little I know, I think comes across well through the objects."

Rosaline nods tentatively, but only after assuring herself that he neither looks smug nor sounds patronising. Neither is the case: he's genuine in his admission that his opinion is not an expert one, no absolute truth to be pushed on her. She's been mansplained to more than enough in her career to see that this is not what's happening here. Benvolio isn't trying to impart knowledge on her impressionable lady-brain from the lofty height of his male intellect - he's simply sharing his thoughts on a subject they're both passionate about.

"Of course some of it comes across," she agrees reluctantly, "but seeing how vastly the change in thinking influenced the art and architecture of the time, I still think it might be nice to have a little more information on that kind of background."

He ponders her argument for a moment while he studies the paintings around them. When he looks back at her, she expects him to go back to teasing her, to repeat his claim that she's simply asking for too much. But his reply is a serious one; another flash of that intriguing side of him she's glimpsed a few times lately, earnest and thoughtful.

"Maybe you don't always need the theory behind things; the rational analysis. Maybe sometimes you can look at something and just... understand."

There's a depth shining in his eyes that makes her pause - something searching, or perhaps not even searching anymore but  _knowing_ , and Rosaline is gripped with the eerie awareness that there are plenty of things she herself is far from understanding.

The "ding" sound of Benvolio's phone cuts through the thickness of the moment, and Rosaline finds herself almost relieved when he looks down at his phone, then laughs out loud.

"Mercutio writes that he went to the museum cafeteria. Apparently, listening to us "nerd out" is "absolute torture". He demands to be "freed from this prison" immediately."

Air quotes indicate that he's citing directly from Mercutio's text, but even without their help Rosaline could have told.

She chuckles. "Not a fan of museums, that one."

"No. But a good friend," Benvolio says, and Rosaline hastens to make sure he doesn't think she's trying to attack Mercutio.

"I don't doubt it. You seem happy he's here."

"I am." He shoots her a quick sideways glance. "And you're really okay with him staying with us? It would be okay if you weren't."

"I'll survive for a while," Rosaline replies, and tries not to think about the two evening's she's spent lying in bed and staring at the window, hypertaware of the body next to her whose presence wasn't supposed to be a big deal. "He does make a killer mousse au chocolat."

"That he does. Should we pick him up at the café? Or let him stew a little longer?"

"Well, we haven't even glimpsed at the clock exhibit," Rosaline replies mischievously.

"Good point. We can't just skip the clocks." He flashes her a grin. "And Mercutio could stand to learn a little patience."

"He really could," Rosaline agrees.

But when they finally do make their way to the cafeteria on the ground floor, after passing through not only the clock exhibit but through rooms dedicated to fashion, jewelry and glassware as well, Mercutio looks like patience is not a concept he's ever heard of.

"You guys are the  _worst_ ," he whines when they reach his table. "I've been waiting here for  _ages_."

"It's been less than an hour," Benvolio replies calmly, picking something up from the table - a napkin, with what looks like a name, a phone number and the words "call me" scrawled on it. "And it looks like you made good use of the time."

"Well, yeah. There was a cute tour guide stopping by earlier. But then she had to leave to do one of her tours, and I was alone again. And anyway, that doesn't change the fact that you dragged me to a  _museum_ and then  _ignored_ me to have flirty discussions about dead people."

"Their ideas have shaped the world..." Rosaline tries to argue, but Mercutio raises a hand to stop her.

"Don't even  _try_  to lecture at me right now. We are getting out of here;  _you_ ," he points at Benvolio, "are buying me a drink, and there will be no more talk of philosophy and classical proportions for the rest of the day."  
  
“Alright, alright. God forbid you get some culture in you.“ Benvolio rolls his eyes playfully and holds out a hand to pull his friend to his feet, and not for the first time since Mercutio arrived, Rosaline marvels at the lightness he brings out in Benvolio. She likes it, she finds, and then wonders if that talent is exclusive to Mercutio or if perhaps other people could learn to have the same effect.

"On the plus side,“ Mercutio recounts as they make their way to the exit, “I posted a super pretentious pic of you guys. Juliet already liked it, and apparently all her friends from college agree that it's  _'adorbs'_ ," he mimicks a high-pitched female voice that does sound impressively like her cousin, "so in a way I have done more for your little covert operation today than either of you."  
  
He holds up his phone to show them a picture he posted on his Instagram: the two of them flanking that model of the Florentine cathedral with a painting of the same subject on the wall behind them. Illuminated only by a skylight from above, the rest of the exhibition room is dark, and in the slanting light falling upon the two of them, their faces, turned towards each other, provide a mesmerizing contrast: Benvolio's animated as he gestures at the model, Rosaline's calm and tilted slightly sideways as she listens, almost serene with a little smile tugging at her lips.

The hashtag Mercutio added reads "love is art", which is definitely pretentious as fuck, but the picture itself is beautifully well-composed, Rosaline has to admit. Plenty of other people seem to agree: there are already close to a hundred likes, and more than a few comments.

"You must have a lot of followers", Rosaline observes, slightly overwhelmed.

"Please tell me my uncle isn't one of them?" Benvolio sounds mildly horrified.

"No, but his assistant is. I took him home at your last Christmas party, and we've been liking each other's posts since then. And I'm not saying your uncle sicced his assistant on me, but he is definitely making him report back on my activities. Trust me, news of your little date will get back to Montague senior shortly."

He looks as if he's ready to pat himself on the back for this achievement.

"I have to say, this whole lying and subterfuge deal really suits me. I don't know what you were whining about..." He breaks off abruptly, nervously looking back and forth between them. Next to Rosaline, Benvolio tenses, and Mercutio hastily starts over. "I don't think it will be as difficult to convince people that this is real as you think."

Rosaline appreciates the optimism, especially after the ridiculous lengths they've been going to for the sake of that very mission, but when she looks at Benvolio, he's still glaring daggers at his friend.

"I think for today, you've done enough. Let's get out of here."

He starts walking to the door abruptly, but it doesn't take long for Rosaline to catch up with him. She has a feeling that something shifted, made his mood tilt somehow, and she can't help but wonder if it's her fault.

"This has been fun," Rosaline offers hesitantly, and when Benvolio turns his head to look at her, his expression softens visibly.

"What, torturing Mercutio with culture?"

Rosaline laughs. "That too. But I meant all of it. You know, hanging out. We haven't really done that a lot."

Now there's definitely surprise on his face, and just a shadow of doubt. But Rosaline holds his gaze, lets her eyes and her smile prove what her words apparently couldn't, and the shadow disappears, replaced by a tentative smile.

"I guess we should change that then."

"We should."

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was finished 10.000 feet over Milan (not Verona, sadly) and posted from a square in Barrio Alto in Lisbon, and I'm saying this to point out how completely obsessed I still am with this fic. I am literally on vacation right now, and I'm doing all of this on my phone. (Technology is amazing.)  
> Anyway, buckle up - this one's a rough one.

Rosaline, even though she perhaps doesn't have the best track record of being openly approving of Benvolio Montague, really did mean what she said at the museum: She had fun talking about art and architecture with him, and she would welcome a repeat. But the supposedly simple plan to hang out again proves surprisingly difficult to realise.

Apparently, there's an important deal to complete which Benvolio has been closely involved in, and neither Rosaline nor Mercutio see much of him for the following weeks. This has the upside of taking a lot of the awkwardness out of their sleeping arrangement,  since Benvolio tends to come home, head straight upstairs, and be fast asleep by the time Rosaline follows a little later. She has taken to sitting in the garden with Mercutio instead, at least on evenings when he doesn't have other plans, and listening to the always entertaining stories (or, more likely, wildly exaggerated yarns) from his travels. 

Benvolio, alarmingly, almost always declines to join them. Mercutio tries to persuade him at first, but then Rosaline makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he is not to further sleep-deprive his friend when he's already essentially a zombie, and Mercutio relents. 

Still, Rosaline feels guilty, wondering if this is yet more punishment for their little display of resistance when they went to the museum, even though it was instigated by her and Mercutio, and Benvolio had nothing to do with it. 

It doesn't help her unease when she notices a growing tension between the Montague cousins, with Romeo's invitations to nights out with him and Mercutio becoming more insistent, and his disappointment when Benvolio inevitably declines turning more and more into irritation. 

Rosaline watches, quietly but with the growing feeling that something's got to give, that there's a pressure building up here that must find its release at some point - and inevitably, it does.

It happens on a night Romeo has long looked forward to: his first small collection of poetry has found a publisher, and the night it appears in print, the publishing company arranged a little launch party at a local bookstore; just a dozen or so people, some wine and fingerfood and Romeo reading a selection of his poems. It's not a big event, and the crowd seems to be overwhelmingly made up of flirty-eyed college students and a few people from Romeo's creative writing program, but he is still (rightfully) proud of his achievement - and Benvolio doesn't show until the evening is almost over. 

Rosaline can tell it's been a tough day the moment Benvolio walks into the bookshop and blinks disorientedly, but Romeo, drunk on Merlot and success, doesn't have an eye for such details. 

The moment Benvolio joins Rosaline, Juliet and the man of the evening himself where they're huddled around the last leftover wine, Romeo opens his arms theatrically wide, a welcoming gesture that is counteracted by the hard edge in his voice: 

"Well, if it isn't our resident corporate bigshot," Romeo drawls, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "I expected this from my Dad, you know - but you? Seems like that super important job finally went to your head after all." 

Benvolio doesn't react with more than a half-hearted rude gesture, but Rosaline can tell from the tension in his shoulders that the words grate on him more than he lets on. 

And knowing what she does about what really goes on behind the Montague family's respectable façade, of course Rosaline can't just stay silent. 

"I guess we can't all follow our dreams and leave it to others to pick up the slack," she bites back, such venom in her voice that Romeo freezes with his wineglass halfway to his lips.

"What?"  

"Well, who do you think is paying for that creative writing major? It's not your little poetry book, that's for sure. So maybe you shouldn't give Ben crap for working his ass off for your family's company when you know damn well you wouldn't be living the way you are without that sweet Montague money." 

Silence falls over their table when she's finished with her rebuke, which may have been just a little too harsh: Romeo and Juliet are staring at her, wide-eyed and completely petrified. Mercutio has buried his face in his hands in apparent desperation. And Benvolio's face is flushed, a muscle ticking in his jaw - and his eyes are pure fire.

"I don't need you to defend me."  

"You clearly need someone," she shoots back, and only when she sees the hurt in his eyes does she realise what a mistake she just made. Benvolio, Rosaline understands in that moment, puts up with his uncle's treatment by telling himself that it isn't really all that bad,  _can't_  be all that bad, because if it were, someone else would notice, wouldn't they? And here she is, casually confirming that his uncle really does treat him like shit - and no one around him considers it their responsibility to do a damn thing about it.  

She just took a shitty situation and made it worse. 

But Rosaline has never been good at turning back once she's decided on a direction, and as much as she feels sorry right now, the thought of simply dropping the subject, of staying silent  _again_  instead of at least  _trying_  to change this horrible situation, is repugnant to her. 

"What, you think I haven't noticed the way he treats you? The blackmail, the emotional abuse?" 

"It's none of your fucking business what goes on in my family." 

"Oh really? Then maybe you shouldn't have made me a part of it." 

"Yes, I think we both know that was a mistake."  

Rosaline wonders if she's ever met anyone with the ability to make her this angry - teeth grinding, hair-pulling, seeing red before her eyes angry. And even though she knows why he's reacting like this, knows that this is not the time or the place and she's in the wrong for pushing it like this, Rosaline can't stop herself. She's about to reply, unsure what will come out of her mouth but knowing it will be devastating, when Romeo interjects timidly from the side.  

"Um, guys? Can you maybe chill for a moment so that we can talk about this? I want to know what Rosaline means - is my Dad really being such an ass?" He sounds like he isn't sure if he actually wants an answer to the question.

"Of course he's not," Benvolio replies derisively. "Just because Princess Capulet here expects everyone to treat her like royalty doesn't mean I do." 

By now, Rosaline is seething too. So he wants to attack the only person who's even trying to do something about this whole mess?

Well, he can just throw that plan right out the window.

"Go fuck yourself, Montague." And with that, she stalks off. 

***

 

To Rosaline's surprise, Benvolio doesn't come home as late as she expected him to, and she's still awake when he gets in. She hears the door open and close, hears dragging footsteps in the hall - but even several minutes later, he hasn't come upstairs. 

Having had time to cool off since their altercation, Rosaline has managed to admit to herself that, as harsh as his reaction was, it was understandable. She still can't quite agree that it was not her place to say something about the horrid state of affairs between him and his uncle, given how much opportunity she's had recently to witness its devastating effects. But she can concede that perhaps she shouldn't have sprung it on him like this, in public and with no warning, and for that, she is sorry. 

So, when he still hasn't come upstairs several minutes later, Rosaline heads downstairs herself. She finds him in the living-room, spreading a blanket over the couch and fluffing up a pillow. 

"You don't have to sleep here. I don't mind you coming up to bed."

And then, before he can reply that he's not staying down here because he regrets what he said but because he can't stand the sight of her after the things she said, she turns and walks back upstairs again, quickly slipping into bed and turning off the light. She tells herself she's just tired, and eager to leave this ugly evening behind her, but Rosaline still catches herself hoping Benvolio will come to bed.

Five minutes later, she hears footsteps on the stairs; then he slips into the room, closes the door, and the bed dips under him. 

"I'm sorry, for snapping at you before. I was...", he breaks off, leaving her wondering how he would have ended the sentence. Hurt? Angry? Lashing out? Or reminding her that, for all their theatrics, she isn't actually his wife, and it really is no concern of hers what goes on between him and his uncle? 

The thing is though: at some point, somehow, she has begun to feel that he's her responsibility.

But this isn't about her, Rosaline reminds herself. It's his pain she dragged into the light and declared up for discussion today, when it should have been his decision if he wanted to discuss it in the first place.

"I shouldn't have brought it up." 

Silence greets her words, her almost-apology. For a few moments, the only sound is the rustle of sheets as he gets settled; then even that dies out. 

Rosaline wonders if that was all they're going to say about what happened tonight; if she's going to hear him fall asleep next, his breathing evening out into soft snores - but instead, he speaks. 

"My uncle hates me."

The words drop into the liquid silence like a heavy weight, sinking straight to the bottom of this dark evening. In their hollow echo, he continues:

"I try to tell myself that I'm just imagining it, that no one else sees it because if they did, they would say something, but…." Rosaline turns on her side to face him, and his eyes flicker as they meet hers, as if he has to suppress the urge to look away. "He really does hate me, and I thought I was beginning to  be okay with it, and then you come along and just shove everyone's noses in it." 

He runs a hand through his hair, once and then again, unnecessarily, and even in the treacherous moonlight falling on him through the window she can tell how erratic his movements are.  _"_ _You're_   _nowhere_   _near_   _okay_   _with_   _it!",_ Rosaline wants to blurt out, but she has a feeling he has already come to the same realisation. 

"My aunt hates me too. She makes it seem like it's all my fault, for not living up to her insane expectations. But I think it's because I look so much like my mom, and there were always rumors that aunt Giuliana was going to marry my Dad, before she changed her mind to marry his richer brother instead." 

Benvolio looks surprised, and Rosaline suddenly feels stupid, and doubtful that her story helped much. She isn't sure anything she could say will help much right now, but Benvolio clearly seems to believe so, or he wouldn't have brought the topic up with her like this. She surges on.

"I'm not trying to make this about me. I'm just saying, I really do know what it feels like, to be hated for something you can't control." She reaches out to squeeze his arm, a quick and awkward gesture but all the comfort she dares to offer right now. She offers strength and determination instead, and hopes they will help: "But we can't let them get us down. We can't let them make us feel like it's our own fault, like we somehow did something wrong just by  _existing_. And we can't let them make us feel like we're all alone. We're not.  _You_  are  _not_  alone." 

The words sink into silence, the truth in them remaining unclaimed for a moment before he replies: 

"Maybe not, but it feels like it sometimes. When my uncle threatens to push me out of the company, he seems so sure no one will even try to stop him that I…" he breaks off on a choking breath, but Rosaline knows what he means. 

"You start to believe it." 

Another choked breath is his only reply, but in the moonlight she can see him nod, the movement causing a single tear to tumble off his lashes and run down his cheek into the pillow. 

"I'm so tired of feeling like I'm not good enough."

And with that sentence, admitting a truth he's tried so long and hard to hide from the world, suddenly there's nothing left in Benvolio's voice of the easy-going, overly confident man Rosaline first met when Juliet and Romeo introduced them. All of that has worn off, leaving him raw and bare and supported only by a stubborn will to keep being.

Without thinking, Rosaline reaches out again, curves her hand around his cheek to brush away the second and third teardrops to have quickly followed that first one, and Benvolio's eyes slide shut on a shaky exhale. 

"You  _are_  good enough," she says fiercely, "and you can never let him make you believe anything else." 

Another strangled breath, just as shaky as the one before but a little quieter, as if he was struggling to tame his sadness and stuff it back from whence it escaped. But after her earlier, cowardly botched attempt at a comforting gesture, Rosaline is determined not to let him retreat now - not until he feels, with bone-deep certainty, that there are people who respect and value him, even if those people are perhaps the ones he least expected. 

She scoots a little closer and leans her forehead against his, prompting a surprised intake of breath - but still no retreat, she notes with relief. 

"You are good, and talented, and devoted to your friends and family. That's not just enough, that is more than a lot of people can say about themselves." 

She slides her hand from his cheek to his temple and down to the back of his head to run her fingers gently through his hair; a soothing, lulling movement. Benvolio shivers softly but doesn't pull away, and eventually, his breathing calms down again on its own.

"We're going to figure something out, okay? But for now, let's just sleep." 

He nods against her forehead, then sighs softly. 

"Thank you." 

Rosaline feels her heart ache with sudden tenderness for this proud, lost man who somehow ended up in her life and now needs her help.

Before she can overthink it or chicken out again, Rosaline angles her head up and presses a soft kiss to his forehead.

"Sleep."

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I figured after the last chapter, we all needed a break, and this is it. Mostly, Benvolio sleeps and Rosaline reads and not much else happens. This chapter is brought to you by a lot of free time near the ocean and a gorgeous 18th century monastery and palace. Shout-out to @tryalittlejoytomorrow, who inspired the quiche and who deserves a fluffy chapter after the last one nearly broke her.

The next morning Benvolio sleeps through his alarm, and Rosaline, whom it does wake up a few minutes later, promptly switches it off. 

Then she calls his office to say that he's sick, telling herself that this is a perfectly appropriate thing for a wife to do. At least, she assumes it is, having had very little experience at being a wife so far. No one questions her authority in the matter, but the secretary taking the message sounds terrified upon hearing it. Rosaline quickly promises her that if Montague senior has any questions about his nephew's absence, she will answer them herself. 

Feeling oddly hungover considering she only had one glass of wine last night, Rosaline goes downstairs to make herself a big mug of coffee. She didn't sleep well, and even now, the memory of last night haunts her - of how very desperate Benvolio looked and sounded, and how very much she wishes she'd done something about it sooner. As much as she expected him to break down at some point, Rosaline was not prepared for the violence of the neglect and rejection he's been subjected to for God knows how long, and she doesn't know what to do with the anger and guilt and unbearable sadness that have built up inside her since last night, and have yet to recede again. 

She paces the house restlessly, putting things in order that were already out of the way and looking for stuff to clean, any kind of task to help her sort her thoughts. Instead of looking back, she decides, the best thing to do would be to find a way out of this. What did Benvolio say? His uncle seems certain no one would even try and stop him if he pushed his younger brother's heir out of their business.

But what if somebody  _trying_  is exactly what Damiano is afraid of? What if his hold on the company isn't as strong as he would like everyone, especially Benvolio, to believe?

Just as that interesting train of thought picks up speed, however, Rosaline's musings are interrupted by the doorbell. 

Rosaline heads to the door slowly, half expecting to find Damiano Montague standing outside like some vengeful demon and then feeling paranoid about it. It's not the elder Montague greeting her but the youngest, however, and Rosaline is relieved.

"Is Ben here? He isn't answering his phone, and at the office they said he called in sick." 

"I made that call, Benvolio is sleeping. And I'm not waking him up now." 

Romeo's already tense face falls, and Rosaline feels bad for him.

"You can come in and have a coffee while you wait for him to wake up," she offers instead.

"Thanks," Romeo says, but seems a little hesitant to follow her invitation. "You're not going to yell at me again, are you? Because I already feel like shit." 

"I'm not going to yell at you, I promise. But I'm not taking back anything I said last night either. It needed saying."

Now Romeo looks crushed. But when she opens the door wider, he still follows her inside, and for the first time since last night's harrowing talk Rosaline feels somewhat optimistic again.

"I feel horrible about what I said. I knew my Dad was pushing Ben pretty hard, but he pushes everyone - I had no idea it was this bad." 

"I think your cousin tries to shield you from that as much as possible." 

"Why would he do that?" 

"Because he loves you, and he doesn't want you to feel like you have to take a side against your Dad." 

"Trust me, right now I would happily do just that." 

"And that's exactly what he wanted to avoid, I assume."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"You'll have to ask him that." 

"Oh, I will. I have a long list of questions for us to work through," Romeo says, and his determined expression makes him seem more mature than Rosaline thought him capable of. Maybe Benvolio has underestimated his little cousin, Rosaline thinks hopefully. 

"Sounds like you've got a long morning ahead of you," Rosaline observes and sets down a mug of fresh coffee in front of Romeo. "Milk and sugar?"

Romeo says yes to both, and Rosaline turns to the fridge to get the milk - only to be startled by a loud exclamation of "Fuck!" from upstairs. 

"I think you should tell Ben about his sick day before he has a heart attack," Romeo says, and Rosaline hastens to follow the suggestion. 

She runs into Benvolio at the top of the stairs, frantically dashing to the bathroom. 

"I overslept! Why didn't you wake me?" 

"Because you needed sleep." Benvolio's eyes flicker feverishly. "Relax, I've called your office to say you're sick." 

"And they were okay with that?"

"What are they going to do, have the police drag you in to work?" 

Benvolio still looks nervous, panicked almost, and knowing exactly why that is, all the morning's anger and the night's sadness slam back into her. 

"I told them that if your uncle has a problem with that, he can talk to me about it." She tries to curb her anger and keep her voice calm, and after a few moments, she sort of succeeds. "Now, when you're ready, come downstairs - Romeo is here to talk, and I think that's something you both need." 

Benvolio nods, but it's hesitant and unconvincing, and she can practically see him retreat again.

"You should really use this opportunity. Talk to him, about everything. Don't let things go back to normal. You won't be able to take " _normal_ " much longer."

With that, she leaves him to make his decision, hoping he'll make the right one - and five minutes later, it seems he has: Benvolio arrives in the kitchen, casual in sweatpants and a T-Shirt, sits down across from Romeo and pours himself some coffee. 

"Hi," he begins somewhat awkwardly, and then, as if rallying his courage: "So, about last night…" 

Smiling softly to herself, Rosaline quickly puts her mug in the dishwasher before she leaves, letting them have their space to hash things out. But when she walks past Benvolio, she can't resist giving his shoulder a quick, appreciative squeeze. She's proud of him for having the courage to tackle this uncomfortable but necessary conversation - that should excuse a little bit of affection, shouldn't it? 

***

 

Leaving Benvolio and Romeo behind to talk, Rosaline heads to the university library with not one but two missions of her own. First, she steers towards the row of computers to do some research in the library's newspaper archives. She finds a number of articles detailing the history of Montague & Sons: from the company's humble beginnings to its meteoric rise to success and to the tragedy that nearly broke the family apart. The scope of it is even bigger than she was aware of: Not only did Benvolio's parents die in that car crash, but so did Romeo's mother. Almost an entire generation of one family, wiped out just like that. 

Many of the articles find sympathetic words for Damiano Montague's loss, and praise for his decision to adopt his nephew - but Rosaline can't help but think that, while Damiano gave the little boy a roof over his head, she doubts he gave him the loving home he needed. Photos showing the Montague brothers make her wonder if there is an explanation for Damiano's hostility towards his nephew: Benvolio looks startlingly like his father, and she guesses it must be painful for the Montague patriarch to be reminded daily of his tragic loss. But then, none of that is Benvolio's fault - and none of it warrants a lifetime of abuse. 

Throat tight and eyes burning, Rosaline forces herself to keep going. After all, as illuminating as it is to learn all these things, it's not what she came here for. The answers she seeks can't be found in the oftentimes nauseatingly sensationalist articles about the accident itself; more often than not, they're buried deep in the business section. She finds that Benvolio did indeed inherit his father's half of the company, which swiftly passed into his uncle's custody until he came of age. Later articles detail the sale and re-buy of shares, the renaming of business subsidies and restructuring of the corporation, but Rosaline doesn't understand enough about these things to grasp what that means for Benvolio's grip on the company, and how it might enable his uncle to push him out. She does, however, wonder if Damiano's gracious decision to adopt his orphaned nephew may not have more to do with his inheritance than anything else - a thought she would dismiss as too calculating to be true, if it weren't for the fact that she's starting to think there  _is_  no move too calculating for the Montague in question. 

Her anger simmers up again, only mildly less unpleasant than the sadness of before, but Rosaline still pushes on, continuing to gather all the information she can find about the company's development. Not even a reminder of another tragedy, one that hits much closer to home, can stop her: the fatal deal that sealed her father's fate, and turned his life's work into nothing more than another page in the Montague portfolio. She forces her thoughts to push past the memories evoked by seeing her father's name, back to the problem at hand.

Unfortunately, Rosaline soon realises, as much as she knows now, she isn't really any closer to solving the puzzle. She'll need some inside information - and the one person who can provide that is the last person she wants to bother with it today. 

Resigned and exhausted, Rosaline saves everything she found on a USB-stick, then turns her attention to the day's second task: picking up the research effort for her thesis again, for the first time in months. She thought this would be the most daunting task of the day, but after a morning spent reading up on tragedies of the past, Rosaline is actually relieved to get back to her Renaissance philosophy, no matter how many painful memories it might bring. 

To her surprise, however, the pang of sadness at remembering all the times she spent discussing her research questions with Escalus fades quickly, replaced by the familiar feeling of losing herself in her thoughts. And she has plenty of those: fresh from her visit to the museum, Rosaline is thinking about reworking her current hypothesis and approaching the topic from a whole new angle, and the more she reads up on possible sources, the more she is convinced it will work. 

By the time she leaves the library with a heavy book bag, Rosaline is feeling much better, giddy even. Stopping on her way past the supermarket to buy a tub of ice cream, she spots a special offer outside that makes her first snort in amusement, and then consider it in earnest. Unlike her usual habit, Rosaline left her bicycle at home today and took Benvolio's car, which he has specifically offered her to take for grocery shopping and the like. So really, getting her impulse buy home should not be a problem, and God knows they could use it. 

She enters the house twenty minutes later struggling under the weight of her heavy books and a newly-bought foldable deck-chair, which she drags into the kitchen to proudly present it to a confused Benvolio. 

"Now we can both chill in the garden." 

"That's… a pretty neat idea." 

"I'm glad you agree." 

Rosaline looks around the kitchen, only noticing now that there's a variety of baking ingredients strewn all over the counter and the oven is on. 

"What are you making?" 

"Quiche." 

"Smells delicious," Rosaline observes, and is reminded again why she left the library: she was actually famished. She's been reading for hours without so much as a granola bar for sustenance, and the quiche not only smells delicious but looks nearly done as well. 

"Any particular occasion?" 

"Not really. I just haven't had a lot of time to cook lately, as you may have noticed," Benvolio grimaces, and Rosaline isn't sure whether to be relieved that he's able to joke about this, or worry that he isn't taking the situation seriously enough and will return to his old, unhealthy ways soon. "Would you like to try a slice? It should be done any minute." 

"Can I have the whole thing then? 'Cause I'm starving." 

Benvolio chuckles; a sound that only adds to her good mood. 

"That bad? We have to get some food in you then." He turns to look into the oven and seems satisfied, switching it off and grabbing oven mitts to take out the ceramic pan. "Where have you been all day anyway? Just shopping for patio furniture?" 

"I've been to the library, actually. That museum exhibit gave me some ideas for my thesis, and I checked out a few books to follow up on them." 

Rosaline watches, mouth watering, as Benvolio sets down the pan, cuts off two big slices of quiche and sets them down on two plates. 

"Sounds like you had a productive day then." 

"I did!", Rosaline agrees, then something occurs to her. "And it's your fault, really - the things you said about the connections between art, architecture and philosophy got me thinking. So I guess I have to thank you for my new inspiration." 

Benvolio looks up, pleasantly surprised. "Really? I helped you?" 

"You did," Rosaline's confirms, looking at him steadily to let him know she's not joking. It's him who looks away first, turning to the fridge to take out some lettuce and tomatoes. He arranges the vegetables into a small garnish salad on the side of the quiche slices, seasoning both with salt and pepper and some freshly-squeezed lemon juice. 

Rosaline watches in utter fascination as he arranges their plates this way, with quick, purposeful movements. She enjoys cooking as well, but she never wastes a single thought on things like presentation - as long as the food tastes good, it could be served to her in the form of a grey brick and she'd eat it, probably. She assumes it's his artist's eye that drives the habit, although she has to admit there's something touching about the gesture, about putting in that extra effort that has no bearing on the quality of the food, just to make it look nice for the receiving person. 

"So you're working on your thesis again?" 

Rosaline hesitates, dragging out her answer while Benvolio pushes a plate towards her and hands her some cutlery.  _Is_  she working on her thesis again? And, more importantly, is she ready to say so, and thus officially return to the very area of her life Escalus used to hold such a firm reign over? 

But then, just this morning she asked Benvolio to be brave, to face his demons in order to change the status quo. She can't very well refuse to do the same when it's her turn, can she now?

"Yes," Rosaline laughs softly, a little breathless at her own audacity, "I guess I am." 

If Benvolio noticed her brief inner turmoil, he doesn't let on, only smiling brightly instead. 

"That's great! So how are you working those new ideas into it?" 

Knowing by now that his interest in her field is genuine, Rosaline answers without hesitation, explaining her new approach while they eat. By the time they've finished half the quiche and Benvolio suggests moving outside to test the new deck-chair, Rosaline has had half a dozen new ideas and rushes upstairs to get her laptop and write them down. 

She returns to find Benvolio stretched out on the new deck-chair, grinning from ear to ear. 

"This was a _great_ idea," he repeats his earlier praise, and watching him, relaxed and smiling like this, Rosaline can't bring herself to tell him what she spent the rest of the day researching. She'll tell him sometime soon, she promises herself - but she'll let him have this one moment free.from the shadow of his uncle.

She pulls the old deck-chair up next to him and sits down instead, opening up her laptop to write down all her new ideas. 

"Thank you," Benvolio says as she waits for the laptop to boot up, with a gravity in his voice that suggests he doesn't just mean the new deck-chair. "For everything." 

"You're welcome," Rosaline replies. And desperate to hold on to the lightness of the afternoon, she adds: "Anything for my beloved, right?" 

Benvolio snorts and she shoots him a quick grin, then turns her attention to her notes. Benvolio falls silent as well, opening the first issue in a big stack of unread architecture magazines, and it doesn't take long for Rosaline to be completely immersed in her work once more. 

The next time she looks up, Benvolio is fast asleep, a magazine issue dated to last September open on his chest. Rosaline sets it aside so it doesn't get crumpled; smiling the beatific smile of a woman who was right and has been listened to: He really  _did_  need that sick day. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, new chapter! This one's a little short and a little pointless and it didn't really come out the way I wanted it to, but oh well.

The next day, Benvolio goes back to work despite Rosaline's careful suggestion that he take a second day off, not that she really expects him to listen. But while he still comes home late the rest of the week, he seems to be making an effort to keep his hours somewhat reasonable. And, although Rosaline admits this might be wishful thinking: He seems a little lighter when he gets home, a little less like he might shatter any moment. And while he even spends most of the weekend at the office, on Saturday evening Benvolio meets her, Mercutio, Juliet and Romeo at a bar near Montague tower where they have been summoned for, as Mercutio promises with much fanfare, “an important announcement”.

Rosaline is understandably wary when she gets to the bar, but despite the fact that she received reminders from all three of the others, the only one already sitting at a table near the bar is Benvolio. He's already equipped with a drink, so Rosaline follows his example and sits down, jumping right back to the last issue she's been pondering before she came here – there's no need for smalltalk between them after all.

“I've been thinking: If it makes things easier with your uncle, you can always claim the divorce is my fault, once we get it. I don't mind taking the blame.”

It's a little early to be thinking about this, perhaps, seeing as the plan was to stick it out for a year at least. But ever since the night Benvolio finally broke down Rosaline has been unable to think about anything else but how to help him. Unfortunately, she hasn't had a chance to talk to Benvolio about her idea to take his uncle down a notch, and her research into _Montague & Sons_ has not yielded any results so far. This is the only thing she can offer.

Benvolio looks surprised.

“Why?”

Of course he doesn't just accept her offer, Rosaline thinks fondly - knowing him the way she knows him now, she's sure he will at least try and find a story where they're both equally at fault. They could just pass it off as an amicable separation, of course, although there is a certain irony in the fact that they'll be better friends at the time of their divorce than they were when they got married.

She shrugs. “I guess I'm already used to disappointing everyone.”

He studies her, in that intense way that still has not stopped making her twitchy.

“Why  _is_  anyone disappointed in you anyway? As far as I can tell, you were doing pretty well for yourself – good school, getting your PhD and all that. And before Vegas, you weren't one to cause any family scandals either.”

It's strange to hear someone come to such a positive conclusion about her life's achievements, especially someone she knows was never in danger of being biased in her favor. But Benvolio says it completely matter-of-factly, as if there's no question at all that she's doing pretty good at life and her aunt and uncle are unreasonable for expecting anything more. It makes her all the more aware of how much it hurts to be constantly found wanting by her own family, and she swallows hard as she remembers some of the other criticisms she heard from aunt Giuliana over the years, the near-constantly pained look on uncle Silvestro's face when he looks at her.

“I wasn't exactly on my way to the altar with a handsome doctor either.”

“Who _cares_? You're getting an academic title of your own!” Benvolio looks genuinely outraged.

“According to my aunt, that's not the same thing at all. Plus, then that all went to shit anyway, so, you know, now I'm even more of a disappointment.” Rosaline looks down at her lap, suddenly embarrassed to let him know all of these things, even though he opened up to her about his own insecurities. But she's not usually one to pity herself, or a big fan of unpacking her emotional baggage.

But to her relief, Benvolio doesn't seem to be pitying her in the slightest.

“Well, you did get married at least,” he says cheerfully, clearly aware of how little it impressed her aunt, and Rosaline has to grin.

“Sorry to disappoint, but you're not quite the renowned neurosurgeon they were hoping for.”

He looks outraged. “I could  _be_  a renowned neurosurgeon.”

“Oh please....” Rosaline wants to shoot back something about the likelihood of people trusting him with their brains, but she's interrupted by the arrival of their cousins, both sporting puzzled looks.

“Why does Ben want to be a neurosurgeon?”, Juliet asks as she bends down to hug Rosaline.

“To make your mother proud,” Benvolio replies, getting up to hug Juliet as well, and Rosaline snorts at her cousin's confused expression.

“You're both weird.”

"If you say so," Benvolio breezes past the comment. "So, are you going to finally reveal why we've been summoned here?"

"As soon as Mercutio gets here," Romeo assures them, then goes to get drinks for Juliet and himself.

Luckily, their patience isn't tested much, for Mercutio arrives shortly after and sits down with a pint he somehow procured between entering and getting to their table, even though the place is packed by now, and everyone else had to fight to even get through to the bar.

"It's a special talent," Mercutio explains smugly when they ask about that particular achievement, then immediately blurts out with the matter at hand: the mysterious Important Announcement that has brought them together here.

"We've been thinking about Ben's whole work-life-balance-problem", he begins, and Rosaline tenses at the way it makes it sound like it's Benvolio's own fault. But for the sake of peace Rosaline holds her tongue and waits to hear where he's going with this. "And we've got the perfect antidote."

He pauses for dramatic effect, only to be upstaged by Romeo when he blurts out:

"We're taking a beach trip!"

Mercutio looks deeply offended at having his thunder stolen.

" _Dude_."

"I'm sorry, I got a little ahead of myself! You tell them the rest."

"Alright," Mercurio picks up his thread once more. "So you know how my uncle's got a house in the Hamptons? Well, he's off sailing the next two months, so we can stay there anytime we want."

"Now, I talked to my Dad," Romeo takes over once more, "and since your big deal thing is supposed to come through by the end of the week, he agreed to let you take a few days off once everything is signed."

"Your Dad gave me time off? Just like that?" Benvolio sounds incredulous.

"Well, it _is_ for my bachelor party, so really, he couldn't say no."

Benvolio claps a hand to his forehead in frustration.

"I forgot about your bachelor party!"

"Yeah, I figured." Romeo takes the news with surprising calm. "Since, you know, it's only a few months to the wedding and I have yet to be instructed to keep a weekend free for non-specified purposes."

"And since I haven't received any similar instructions," Juliet now speaks up even as Rosaline is still grappling with the fact that apparently, she too forgot to organize a bachelorette party, "I've decided to just latch on to that brilliant plan. So, dear Rosaline, you will be forgiven for forgetting about my bachelorette party, but only on the condition that you come along to the Hamptons. I've already asked Livia, and she can make it too."

Rosaline stifles a fond smile.

“We don't even get a say in this, do we? You've got it all figured out.”

Mercutio throws one arm over her shoulder, the other over Benvolio's, giving them both a friendly but inescapable squeeze.

“That we have, Mrs. Montague. _That_ we have.”

***

  
Just a few days later, Rosaline throws open a set of wide doors leading out to a broad wooden porch, breathes in salty air, and lets out a loud, joyful whoop. Behind her, Livia and Juliet are flitting about the house, which is huge and airy and decorated in that "all white with navy accents"-style that only works near oceans, and even then always runs the risk of being tacky.

Their house, however, is far from tacky - it's so ridiculously elegant that Rosaline immediately feels like a divorced socialite, or at the very least a _Sex and the City_ -character. She's suddenly glad she let Juliet talk her into shopping for a new bathing suit, because while Rosaline was sure her old one-piece, faded and stretched-out, was still perfectly adequate, she has to admit she does feel pretty good when she slips into her new one, a strappy, rather daring one-piece in bright sapphire that shows quite a lot of skin due to some cleverly placed cut-outs.

Right now, of course, Rosaline couldn't care less what her bathing suit looks like: there's an ocean waiting for her right past the back porch, and Rosaline doesn't want to make it wait another second before jumping in. She hasn't been to the beach in what must have been years, unable to bear the memories of the many happy summers she spent there with her family, or simply lacking the time and money for such a trip. But the lure of the ocean is strong as ever, and Rosaline barely takes the time to throw her bag in the bedroom Juliet has deemed "the girls' room" before she's changing into her bathing suit and running out to the beach, Livia hot on her heels.

They run into the water squealing and giggling, because the worst thing to do when the water is cold is to stop before you're all the way in, and Rosaline and Livia know this well. One brave lunge and a few quick strokes bring Rosaline out of the shallow water, and when the waves embrace her it feels like coming home.

It's an overcast day and the water's a little choppy after several days of rain, and almost as if thinking the same thing, Rosaline and Livia swim back to the shallows, to that little dip where the waves hit the beach and break, to pursue what used to be their favorite pastime as kids: Throwing themselves into the frothing, gurgling waves again and again, letting themselves get dragged under or carried on top of the waves' crests, the thrill of battling nature itself made even more acute by that little sting of Angstlust that comes with the drag of the undercurrent. They would do this for hours on end, until their lips would turn blue and their gangly, goosebump-roughed limbs would be trembling with cold. Wrapped in big, fluffy beach towels, they would then curl up on a deck-chair with their mother, warm and bone-tired and happy.

Now, with Livia energetically bouncing beside her and Juliet watching them from the beach, for the first time Rosaline finds that indulging in the memory doesn't hurt as badly as it used to - no more than the slight ache of nostalgia that comes with every reminder of childhood.

A few feet away, a gaggle of kids have joined them in their game and are still at it when Rosaline and Livia finally emerge from the water, skin sticky with salt and bathing suits full of coarse sand. All of that can be washed off later, they agree, and simply plop down on two beach chairs to dry off in the sun that has battled its way through the clouds.

The guys have arrived by then, already parked on deck-chairs of their own with some sort of drink in their hand that Mercutio no doubt equipped them with. It took them a little longer to get here, no doubt thanks to the snazzy sports car Mercutio rented for the three of them while Rosaline, Livia and Juliet drove in Juliet's car, and now they're bursting with stories of their PS-fuelled adventures on the way here.

Rosaline only listens half-heartedly. She intended to spend some time on her thesis notes, which she's collected in a little notebook and brought outside to the porch, but instead she entertains herself for a little while by watching the kids still frolicking in the surf. Even long after she and Livia have given up, they show no signs of tiring, throwing themselves again and again into the waves to dive under them or ride their frothy crests. Rosaline watches them, musing idly that perhaps their shrieks and laughter serve as a sacrifice to some benign sea goddess, and that she would probably be more than pleased by their offering.

"You're unusually quiet, Capulet," Benvolio comments from the deck-chair to her left, after she's been silent for what must have been a pretty long time. "What deep philosophical question are you working on?"

"What kind of sacrifice would please a sea goddess," Rosaline answers truthfully, if perhaps lacking a little in context.

There's a short, confused pause.

"Right. Looks like your sister isn't the only creepy Capulet."

" _Creepy_?" On Rosaline's right, Livia sounds offended. "Why am _I_ creepy?"

"I told him the dog murderer story."

"Oh, that was always my best one." Livia lifts her head to look at Benvolio, hoping perhaps to find someone who will share her taste for the macabre. "Did you like it?"

"I'm not sure "like" is the word I'd use," Benvolio replies cautiously, then adds in a stage-whisper directed at Rosaline: "Your sister scares me." 

Rosaline lazily pats his arm, resting on an armrest so close to her own she barely has to reach out. 

"Don't worry, I won't let her get to you." 

"Aww," Livia singsongs teasingly, "you're protecting your husband, that's so sweet."

Rosaline decides that the next time they're in the water, her little sister is going _down_. 

But Benvolio only laughs good-naturedly. "Mock all you want. I'm confident enough in my masculinity to let my wife handle psychopaths for me." 

"Psychopaths?" Livia's mock outrage is dramatic enough to rival Juliet's usual shenanigans. "Is that any way to talk to your sister-in-law?" 

"It is if she's being a brat," Benvolio counters nonchalantly.

Rosaline fishes her little notebook out of the bag she dropped here earlier to work once more, deciding that she's not missing out on much as their friendly ribbing continues. She catches herself thinking how nice it is that the two of them get along so well, before she reminds herself that it doesn't make much of a difference because Benvolio isn't actually her husband, or at least he won't be for very long. It's a fact she has recently caught slipping to the back of her mind more and more often, and Rosaline tells herself to be more careful about it in the future. As well as their whole marriage sham worked out so far, it's still just that: a fake.

Still, fake or not, hanging out with Benvolio is fun even when they aren't even doing anything special - and for most of the first two days it actually is just her and Benvolio at the house. Mercutio is off visiting friends in the neighbouring villas and securing invites to beach parties, while Livia, Juliet and Romeo have the youthful urge to be active seemingly all the time: taking the bicycles to explore the village, challenging strangers on the beach to volleyball matches and talking about renting a speedboat. Rosaline and Benvolio, on the other hand, never even leave the porch except to walk the short way down to the water for a quick swim. When Mercutio insists that they're being boring, Benvolio argues that the whole point of the trip was for him to relax, and that's exactly what he's doing. Rosaline has no such excuse but hides behind her thesis instead, and so both of them eventually get to just sit on the porch and use the free time as they please.

The thesis isn't just an excuse, of course: Rosaline has brought her books and is working towards reorganising her hypothesis and line of argumentation, while Benvolio not only brought the whole stack of those magazines he's been trying to get through, but a box of art supplies as well. So while Rosaline is frantically typing on her laptop or scribbling in her notebook, Benvolio is usually perched somewhere nearby, exhibiting an impressive and frankly unexpected ability to sit nearly motionless for long stretches of time as he sketches - scenes from the beach, Rosaline sees when she asks him what he's drawing, then later a detail of a washed-up starfish and, once the others return, a quick sketch of Juliet braiding Livia's hair. She asks if she can have that one, because it's so incredibly lifelike and sweet, and Benvolio promises she'll get it once he's finished working out the details.

In the evening, Romeo and Mercutio build a campfire on the beach and they huddle around it, wrapped in blankets against the cool wind from the sea, to roast marshmallows and swap old vacation stories and sing along when Romeo gets his guitar.

"Are you relaxing yet?" Rosaline asks Benvolio, and he smiles that particular smile of his, the one that always seems delayed by a moment of surprise; as if he had to adjust to the audacity of being happy first.

"I'm getting there."

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, to my own surprise, the next chunk of story finished itself and demanded to be posted as a chapter immediately. It's pretty short, shameless tropeyness, and I have a feeling some of you will not be all that happy about it. In my defense, I can only say that this fic is slow burn as fuck, and that's just how it is.

 

The next day, Mercutio doesn't let Rosaline and Benvolio get away with excuses again: he drags them to a party in the evening, some friends of his who are spending the summer in a house nearby. Luckily, it's just a short way down the beach, so Rosaline throws on the only thing she brought that isn't casual shorts and tops; a white maxi dress that is all flowy and summery and which Juliet deems "perfect". Benvolio, who's standing next to Juliet, doesn't offer any kind of opinion: he just looks at her silently until Juliet jams her elbow in his ribs and demands to be backed up.

"You look very nice, Capulet." Benvolio relents, voice completely toneless, and Rosaline feels a flicker of annoyance. _Nice_? He couldn't have tried a _little_ harder?

She pushes away the thought of why she should have _wanted_ him to try harder in the first place.

"Can we go now?" Benvolio already has his hand on the doorhandle.

"Aren't you impatient all of a sudden," Mercutio comments from behind Rosaline. "Still, that's no excuse to be stingy with compliments for your wife! Rosaline dearest, Aphrodite herself has nothing on you."

He moves around her, skips down the last few steps of the stairs (which she's been standing on this entire time while awaiting Juliet's verdict, as if she was starring in the post-makeover scene in a rom-com), and holds out his hand to guide her the rest of the way down, every movement exaggerated with a little flourish.

"Shall we, fair Rosaline?"

Ignoring Benvolio's scowl, Rosaline takes Mercutio's hand, letting his silliness infect her.

"We shall, ridiculous Mercutio."

"I will take that as a compliment."

“Of course you will.”

The walk over is a pleasant one, with the pinkish-gold sun low on the horizon and the sand warm under her feet and the wind tangling in her dress (which really does look a lot better than just “ _nice_ ”). Rosaline hooks her arms through Livia's and Juliet's and pulls them both close as they walk, suddenly overcome with affection for both of them.

“This trip was a _great_ idea. Thank you.”

“Better than Vegas?”, Juliet asks teasingly, and Rosaline resists the childish urge to pinch her arm.

“Much better than Vegas.”

Faced with her friends' excited smiles, Rosaline keeps it to herself that she would have been perfectly content to spend the evening sitting on the porch again to watch the sun set over the ocean. But the others have gone through all this trouble to organise this trip for them – she guesses they can suck it up and be social for one evening.

It doesn't turn out to be such a chore, in any case: Most of the people at the party are nice and interesting enough, and only a few are the type of obnoxiously entitled rich kids Rosaline would assume make up most of Mercutio's circle of friends.

When she tells Mercutio this, he laughs, not the least bit offended by what she realises belatedly is perhaps a bit of a double-edged compliment. Then he goes right back to mingling, drinking outrageous drinks and telling outrageous stories, and Rosaline smiles and follows his example, at least for a little while. When she gets tired of all the smalltalk, Rosaline steps around the corner of the porch, which spans the entire house, to the side that is exposed to the wind and therefore deserted.

Well, almost: Benvolio is sitting on the steps leading down to the beach, looking out to the inky water.

She sits down next to him, shoulder bumping slightly into his as she slips off her shoes. The strappy high-heeled sandals she borrowed from Juliet have been rubbing her heel uncomfortably and beginning to form blisters on the balls of her feet, and the cool sand under her soles is a relief.

"Not in the mood to socialise?", she asks, now that her immediate problem is taken care of.

"I've been doing so much socialising for work lately, it kind of loses its attraction."

Rosaline nods in understanding. She's been to her fair share of networking events disguised as social occasions, where the main goal was not to have fun but to see, be seen, and leave a good impression on anyone from potential bosses to potential spouses. Tonight's party may not be that kind of event, but meeting all these new people still requires a certain amount of draining smalltalk. 

"I don't think they'd notice if we got out of here."

Benvolio seems to ponder her suggestion for a moment, then he gets to his feet.

"Probably not."

She follows his example and they set off, away from the brightly lit house and warbling music to the stillness of the black ocean. Seeing as they both left the party to get some peace and quiet, Rosaline assumes Benvolio won't be in the mood to talk, and thus doesn't attempt to initiate conversation. To her surprise, however, he does.

"You really _do_ look nice tonight," Benvolio says suddenly, and Rosaline almost trips on an uneven stretch of ground.

"Still though, ' _nice'_?", she quotes his earlier words back at him. "Other people have compared me to ancient goddesses."

He laughs.

"Well, at least _I_ don't say these kind of things to just anyone."

"That's not what I heard," Rosaline teases, then immediately feels her face heat up in embarrassment – he must think she's fishing for information about things that are no business of hers at all.

"Alright, I admit, I've had some good times." Benvolio relents good-naturedly, but his voice quickly turns serious. "But you know I don't do that anymore, right? I'm not going to embarrass you like that."

Rosaline feels oddly touched by his fierce promise. After all, he stands to lose a lot more than she if their marriage publicly fell apart – it's unnecessary but definitely sweet of him to want to spare her the humiliation.

"I know, you explained that to me and Mercutio after the great monogamy-breakdown."

"Oh. Right."

"And it _is_ a smart decision. After all, what would be the point of all the theatrics otherwise?"

"Exactly," Benvolio agrees, but it sounds hesitant and subdued, and he falls silent afterwards. Rosaline wonders if there's something wrong, but then she remembers why they left in the first place – he probably is just all talked out.

They walk along the dark beach in silence, not exactly comfortable perhaps but not outright awkward either, and Rosaline lets her thoughts stray this way and that, touching on nothing in particular.

Slowly, they drift nearer to the water's edge, until they're close enough for Rosaline to hear the waves lapping on the beach, to feel the occasional misty spray of briny water on her skin. The sand under her bare feet is cold and damp, the wind from the sea is gradually picking up, and Rosaline shivers a little in her thin dress.

"Cold?" Benvolio asks, and when she admits that she is, just a little, he shrugs out of his leather jacket and drapes it around her shoulders before she has a chance to decline the offer.

"Now you'll be cold," she points out, but he only shrugs.

"I'll be okay."

Rosaline considers handing it back to him just on principle because really, she doesn't need chivalry, and it's not like there's anyone around to impress with his spousal devotion.

But the jacket is warm from his body heat and soft from frequent wear, and instead of shrugging it off, Rosaline slips her arms into it, sighing a little as its warmth engulfs her. The leather smells like his cologne, and she realizes with a start that it's become a familiar smell to her, one that signifies home just like the aroma of Benvolio's fancy blend of coffee or the lingering smell of furniture oil from the antique sideboard in the living-room.

"Thanks," she says, voice unusually thin, and pulls the jacket tighter around herself.

He smirks, and she knows what joke he's going to make before he even finishes:

"Anything for my…"

"Don't even say it," Rosaline warns. He laughs instead, so she bumps her shoulder into his, just to signal that his teasing will have consequences.

At least, that's what she intends to do. But another hole in the sand (damn those bratty children and their sandcastles!) throws her off-balance and against him so hard she almost brings them both down.

It's only Benvolio's quick reaction that keeps them upright, steadying her with one hand around her back and one on her shoulder. Suddenly he's very close, and where they were walking side-by-side one moment, the next they're facing each other, his arms around her and hers trapped between them. With her hands splayed on his chest, Rosaline can feel the heat of him through his thin shirt, his heartbeat thudding under her fingertips. She feels her own speed up into a counter-rhythm, confusing and complementary at the same time.

"Whoa, careful!" His voice is raspy, dark in contrast to his earlier bright laughter. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Rosaline replies, again in that reedy, breathy voice that she barely recognizes as her own. "I just tripped over a moat, I think."

“What?” Benvolio asks, looking a little dazed.

Rosaline nods to the half-trampled sand-structure at their feet. “The sandcastle. It has a moat.”

His eyes follow her to the unsteady ground, one bare foot awkwardly wedged in the crescent-shaped little ditch that used to make up the castle's outer defense.

“Oh. Right.”

He pulls her fully upright again, holds on to her until her feet have found solid ground once more and then lets go of her slowly – to make sure she's really found her footing, probably, but something in the way his arm drags down her back before dropping away feels like reluctance.

The night air feels colder when she steps away from him, but her cheeks are hot, and she avoids his bright gaze, eyes fixed on the ground as she picks up the shoes she dropped and navigates around the impressively large perimeter of the sandcastle. She almost feels a little bad for destroying it – it must have taken hours to build in the first place.

Looking around – anywhere but at him – Rosaline notices that they're close to the house and sets off towards it, careful not to trip again. Benvolio follows, by her side again with a few long steps.

“You know, I was going to suggest opening one of the bottles of good wine I've been hiding from Mercutio and his cocktail experiments, but watching you totter about, I'm wondering if maybe coffee might be the better choice.”

“I'm pretty sure withholding the good wine from your spouse is grounds for divorce,” Rosaline counters, latching on to the joke to get herself back on firm ground. Benvolio's laugh helps a little towards that goal.

"Alright, wine it is."

He heads inside to get it while Rosaline settles in on a deck-chair, draping a blanket over her legs that she found folded up by the door. Benvolio returns shortly after, carrying a bottle of red wine and two glasses and setting them both down on the low table between them. She wonders if she should return his jacket, seeing as she has a blanket and she can always go inside and get a sweater, but then she notices Benvolio has put on a sweater himself, and she assumes that means she'll keep the jacket for now. The fact that he never even mentions it should make it clear that it's not a big deal - after all, they're sharing plenty of things in their life. Back home, they're sharing a bed, for crying out loud – and yet, somehow, the weight of his jacket around her shoulders gives her a juvenile little thrill.

She takes a sip of wine, intense and full-bodied and so dry she'd be afraid to get the mother of hangovers tomorrow if Benvolio didn't reassure her that it's definitely not the kind of cheap, sugar-sweetened wine that will have that effect.

She decides to trust him on that, because it's definitely a good thing this wine was saved from Mercutio's experiments. She takes another sip, feels warmth curl in her belly and spread down to the tips of her toes, and slides a little lower in the chair with a content sigh. She's done little else but look out across the beach and to the ocean since they got here, and yet she could keep doing it forever.

"I can't believe I was unsure about coming here – this place is amazing."

"You were?" Benvolio seems genuinely surprised. "But now you're enjoying yourself, right?"

"I am", Rosaline reassures him quickly. "It's just... we used to come here for summer vacations with our parents basically our entire childhood – well, not here exactly, but in the general area. I was...I was afraid it would bring back memories."

It's strange how easily the confession comes, how it doesn't really feel like a confession – there's no moment of uncertainty about whether or not she can trust him with this fragile part of her, no deep breath to steel herself.

"And did it?"

"Yes. But in a good way. It's nice to be reminded of how happy we were – despite everything that happened, we'll always have that, you know?"

And just like it wasn't difficult to admit to this one fear she'd had, it's just as easy to keep talking, about her Dad and how she still misses him, how he'd always try and make time for her and Livia even when things were hectic at the firm. How losing it destroyed him long before the alcohol and the heart attack finished the job. How it felt, for the longest time, like he'd given up on her and Livia and their mother, like they hadn't been enough to hold him after the loss of his life's work.

She doesn't tell Benvolio it was his uncle who engineered the takeover that ruined her father; doesn't want to bring this story back to the same old feud that caused so much grief and animosity already, or for him to feel like it was somehow his fault, even though he couldn't have been working for _Montague & Sons_ yet when it all happened.

"So, this weekend, Livia and I have made a pact to only remember the good things", she concludes. "So far, we've been sticking to it."

It's a good opening for a round of wine-soaked nostalgia, swapping stories of their childhood misadventures that quickly devolve into a competition on who came up with the best pranks. Rosaline wins with the story of how they convinced Juliet's nanny that their cousin's cat was dead (an illusion helped by a dose of crushed sleeping pills in Lord Fluffulet's water that, in hindsight, could very well have killed the animal for real), and Benvolio concedes defeat just in time for them to notice that the bottle of wine is empty, and they're both more than a little chilly.

They head back inside, stopping only to clean the wine glasses, since the fragile crystal goblets are too delicate to be put into the dishwasher. Benvolio assures her it will be no trouble for him to do it by himself, but Rosaline insists on helping, perhaps as a nice gesture in return for his many nice gestures (she's still wearing his jacket), perhaps because even tipsy and a little tired, she doesn't want the evening to end just yet.

They get to work in silence, Benvolio quickly and carefully scrubbing and rinsing out the glasses, Rosaline drying them with a soft towel. Their movements flow seamlessly and wordlessly, and Rosaline marvels at how at ease she is around him now, how comfortable the silence between them feels, especially now that the things that pain them are far away, and have been rendered so much less powerful by being dragged into the light and spoken about.

It's as if the ocean and this house had cast a protective spell over them, keeping the world outside at bay and allowing them to just _be_. Here, they're not the disgraced niece, the troublemaking nephew. They're not older siblings and cousins, worrywarts and spoilsports to their younger companions' reckless fun. They're not even the squabbling maid of honor and best man they used to be – that feud has long since been laid to rest, when bigger fights called for allegiance instead of enmity.

Now, they're just two people, just Rosaline and Benvolio, and as if transported here by the softly lapping waves, the thought comes to her that they could be more than accidental allies and unlikely friends. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she takes in the cut of his profile, the slight flush on his cheekbone, the movement of veins and sinews on his arms where he pushed up his sleeves, and imagines the comfortable ease of their little domestic task giving way to something else, something that she thinks flared up between them before on the beach as well, that must have flared up at some time between drinking on a rooftop and returning to his hotel room in Vegas. She thinks that, in that moment, in the quiet, empty house, it might be easy to give in to it, push him back against the kitchen counter for a fervent kiss and pull him upstairs to an unused bedroom.

But, she reminds herself, things between them have changed since then. In Vegas, he would have been a reasonable choice for a rebound fuck: just some guy she knew, had fun with, and couldn't care less about. Sure, had things not turned out the way they did, he would no doubt been very smug about it, would probably have tried to embarrass her with innuendo-laden jokes for months afterwards, and she would have shut him up with scathing retorts delivered with equal relish. When Juliet and Romeo's big day rolled around, she would perhaps have been tempted to pull him into her room late at night anyway, just to numb the pain of being heartbroken at a wedding.

Instead, she fused her life with his, first by accident and then by choice; she took his struggles on as hers and allowed him glimpses of her own demons, and now that she knows what it's like to be his friend, she can't bear to imagine risking that for the lure of " _what if?_ ", of a warm summer night where thoughts stray to places they aren't ordinarily allowed near. If giving in to that temptation changes things between them again, if things don't work out or get awkward afterwards, she can't just turn her back on him like any other summer fling – they'll still have to be able to be around each other and keep up the happily-married-act for several months at least.

The idea that this risk might never occur, that their friendship could persist even if it changes once more, seems too good to be true, and too dangerous to consider. She's not ready to let herself believe in things like that again, no matter how forgiving the night around her, how far away they are from everyday life.

She follows him up the stairs in silence instead, switches off the hallway light once they've both reached the door to their respective shared bedrooms, across the hall from each other.

"Goodnight, Montague," she says, her voice so soft with longing she wonders if he can hear it. Judging by the way he tilts his head to the side as he studies her, she thinks he can.

He smiles, amused but a little wistful too, she imagines.

"Goodnight, Capulet."

She doesn't allow herself to wonder if his voice holds the same softness as hers before she slips into her room and closes the door behind her, changing into her nightgown and slipping into bed with slow, uncertain movements.

Only once she's already tucked into bed does she realise that she forgot to brush her teeth. But the bathroom door is right next to the bedroom door, and in this moment, Rosaline doesn't trust herself not to walk straight outside, knock on the door across the hall and do something incredibly stupid for the second time this year.

Instead, Rosaline stays in bed, listening to the sound of footsteps outside the door and berating herself about it at the same time. She hears nothing, and when she falls asleep much later, with the taste of wine turning bitter on her tongue and " _what if…?_ " whispering through her mind, she still hasn't decided if she should be relieved or disappointed about it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope the cat prank isn't too cruel - I just really wanted to include a shout-out to the saga of Nurse and the cat on the show.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that the last few chapters were shorter and lighter on plot, but they're still in their small ways important - so here's another one.

Rosaline wakes up early the next morning, tangled in sweaty bedsheets and irritation, her heartbeat racing and her mind swirling with wisps of memories - of silk under careful fingertips and the scratch of a beard on her neck and a desert-sunset-smile. In the cruel, hard light of day, those images, and the evening that prompted them, feel unreal even for a dream, and Rosaline shakes her head angrily as if to dislodge them. When that fails, she gets up, quickly and quietly so as not to wake Livia and Juliet, slips into her bathing-suit, and walks straight into the ocean, ready to drown the memories one and all.

She swims out further than she usually does, with satisfyingly long, hard strokes, and by the time she returns to the beach, her head is as clear as the gleaming morning sky.

And under that gleaming morning sky, sipping coffee on the porch, is the very person whose dream-image she's been trying to escape.

"Any good human sacrifices today?"

For a moment, Rosaline is utterly confused by this greeting - then she remembers their conversation on the first day, her admittedly somewhat strange musings on the preferences of sea goddesses when it comes to mortal gifts. She laughs, and quite against her determination to walk straight past him and stay as far away as possible for the rest of the weekend, Rosaline lingers for a moment. Leaning against the porch railing before him, Rosaline tilts her head back and lets the sun warm her as it begins to rise past the edge of the roof.

"Sadly, no. But it's early still. Plenty of time for offerings."

"You're a very forgiving deity," he comments.

"So I've been promoted to ocean deity now?" Rosaline pretends to think. "Not quite Aphrodite, but I'll take it."

"Well, it depends on which power you'd rather have - making the sea rise at your will, or driving men mad with love for you."

Rosaline makes a face. "Spare me the lovesick men, please."

"Sea goddess it is then," Benvolio concludes with a decisive nod. "Coffee?" He holds up the half-full coffee press.

Rosaline looks down at the wooden porch, where water is dripping down her body and forming a little puddle.

"I think I should change out of my wet bathing-suit first," she explains, gesturing to her torso as if there was any need to specify which garment she means.

His eyes follow her gesturing hands of course, dipping down with the spontaneity of no more than a cursory look and then seeming to get stuck, as if they had tripped over one of the straps and fallen into the dip of the cut-outs. Rosaline feels again that hot-and-cold prickle that comes with emerging from the cold ocean and makes one feel so overwhelmingly _alive_ , but she's not sure it's _entirely_ due to her morning swim just then. It could also have something to do with the involuntary meandering of Benvolio's gaze, the curiosity in his eyes when they meet hers again, and it's enough to make her wonder: perhaps there is more to Aphrodite's power than she would like to admit.

She pushes off the railing and walks back inside before the thought can take root.

***

 

It gets progressively hotter over the course of the morning, and Juliet and Romeo finally manage to get everyone on board with the speedboat idea – mostly by guilt-tripping both Rosaline and Benvolio about forgetting their bachelor and bachelorette parties until they agree to give up on another quiet day by the house in favor of adventures at sea. And perhaps, Rosaline thinks, it may not be the worst idea for them to take a break from basically hanging out together all day, no matter how quiet and peaceful. After all, there have been certain thoughts that have made her feel less than peaceful since last night.

Consequently, Rosaline ends up flitting about the boat in an attempt to spread her attention evenly across everyone _except_ Benvolio, who seems mostly content to chill at the back of the boat with Romeo anyway. She thinks she feels his eyes on her from time to time – but then again, it _is_ a pretty small boat. Rosaline herself can't help glancing over every once in a while, and every time she does, it gets a little harder to look away.

At one point, she finds Benvolio sprawled out on the bench at the rear of the boat, arms draped casually across the padded back of the seat, head thrown back as he laughs about something Romeo said. Mesmerized, Rosaline stares at his smile, white teeth and laugh lines around his closed eyes, follows the line of his throat – exposed in a way that seems to awaken something primal inside her – down to his chest; and finally admits defeat. Or rather, she finally admits to herself what she has been very adamantly denying so far: that she is in fact attracted to her accidental husband.

Which is a _problem_ , for reasons she has spent most of last night reciting to herself as she tossed and turned in bed.

But it can't be helped, Rosaline reminds herself - not unless she wants things to get very complicated, and possibly disastrous.

She tears her eyes away, stifling a sigh at the last moment – only to find Juliet watching her with a knowing expression.

 _Fuck_.

"Enjoying the view?" Juliet asks, arching one delicately shaped eyebrow.

Rosaline suddenly feels hotter than even the midday sun would warrant.

"I'm not... I wasn't... Don't be _ridiculous_."

Juliet laughs.

"Of _course_ you weren't." With that suspiciously mild reply, Juliet lies back down again and closes her eyes to resume sunbathing, and Rosaline almost lets herself believe that she won't probe any further.

Then again, this _is_ her nosy little cousin she's dealing with.

“Would it be so bad if you were though?“

Of course Juliet finds an optimstic angle on this whole mess; dangling hope in front of her in a way that is equal parts torture and a balm to her worried mind.

“You _know_ it would. Things aren't that simple.“

"Maybe things could be simple, if you let them."

For a moment, Rosaline wants Juliet to be right so badly it hurts. Then she snorts and brushes the thought away (or rather, pushes it away, with enough force to send it screeching all the way to the back of her mind).

"Don't give me that “wise elder mentor“-crap; you're a _baby_!"

"At least _my_ wedding isn't going to be an _accident_."

"If there's one thing I regret about that whole mess, it's giving you a way to act like you're suddenly the most mature person in the world," Rosaline grumbles. Juliet has been getting far too sanctimonious, especially considering her little cousin was standing in a shabby wedding chapel herself, just hours before Rosaline slurred some form of vows there, and it wasn't maturity that stopped her but a distaste for the place's lack of romantic _ambiance_.

At least Livia, sprawled out beside Juliet, has dozed off for a nap, otherwise Rosaline is sure she'd want to add her two cents to the topic as well.

"No _other_ regrets then, huh? That's not what you said in Vegas. Did something change your opinion since then?” She pauses dramatically, eyes snapping open to pin Rosaline in place. “Or some _one_?"

"I'm going to push you off this boat."

Juliet seems entirely unimpressed by the threat, so Rosaline chooses a different way out of this tight spot: she gets up herself, walks to the front of the boat, and dives off headfirst. Her dive is beautifully executed, and she only wonders for a fraction of a second if Benvolio is watching.

When she hits the cold water, the shock that makes her mind go blank for a moment is more than welcome.

***

  
  
By the time they return to the house, Benvolio has a sunburn, and Rosaline makes him sit down on a kitchen chair to apply some aloe vera-gel Juliet wisely brought along.

Too late, it occurs to her that really, someone else could be doing this – but then, these kinds of tasks always seem to fall to her, and everyone else immediately scattered the moment she suggested Benvolio ought to do something about his sunburn. Really, she's not sure what she's afraid will happen – the others are right outside on the porch, there's no wine to make people consider stupid things, and she's had an entire day to get herself back under control.

She'll be _fine_.

Benvolio peels off his shirt, and her throat goes dry.

Hasty enough to almost shove him off the kitchen stool he's sitting on, Rosaline walks around him, hoping that perhaps it will help her get some distance, along with some much-needed self-control. Thankfully, the sight of his burned shoulders helps a little - after all, there's a reason for all this, and it's _not_ so she can ogle him up close. Carefully, she starts dabbing the cooling gel on his skin, which makes him wince in momentary pain and then, as the cooling effect sets in, sigh with relief.

" _Fuck_ , that's good." The words come out almost as a moan, raw and throaty and frankly obscene.

Rosaline turns her eyes heavenward and tries to remember the prayers Juliet's devout catholic nanny used to make them learn by heart.

"Can you put some on my face too?"

He can very well put the stupid goo on his face himself, Rosaline knows, but with his sunburn-stained cheeks, he does look rather pitiful. She scoops up another dollop of gel and starts gently spreading it across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He closes his eyes and sighs again, and Rosaline freezes in her movements to stare for a moment. There's something sweet about his utter trust in her, but there's also the realisation that she's standing suddenly very close to him, wedged in between his knees, and that knowledge does something to her that is anything but _sweet_. He'd only have to lift his hands the tiniest bit, she muses, to put them on her hips and....

Benvolio's eyes snap open again.

"What? Is it that bad? It doesn't feel that bad."

"I'm sure it's not that bad. You just look…" _adorable_ , some puckishly mischievous voice in her head suggests, but Rosaline ignores it along with the clench of her stomach at the way he looks up at her, wide-eyed and trusting. "...a little overcooked. You better stay in the shade tomorrow."

“If you say so.”

“I do say so, unless you want to return to the office on Monday looking like a fresh juicy lobster.”

She regrets the words the moment they come out of her mouth, dashing the fragile peace of the last few days. They knew of course that this trip was nothing more than a short reprieve, but they've all been very careful not to mention anything related to his uncle or his work – until now. 

Benvolio's eyes flicker, the light in them dimming visibly. She hates it, hates herself for causing it and, even more acutely, hates his uncle for getting him to this point. Which means, she reminds herself, that it's all the more important that they stop him once and for all.

And since there's no one nearby and she's already brought up the unpleasant topic of what awaits him at work, Rosaline decides she might as well tackle the issue now.

“There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about.”

He looks wary for a second, before his expression straightens out.

“What is it?”

With the excuse of screwing shut the jar of aloe vera and setting it aside, Rosaline takes a deep breath, gathers her thoughts for a moment.

“How much exactly do you own of _Montague & Sons_?”

Now there's open surprise on his face, tinged with amusement shortly after.

“Why? Did you remember that we don't have a pre-nup and you want to know how much you can make in the divorce?”

It could be a cruel statement, but his teasing smile tells her that's not how it's intended – just a bit of gallows' humor at their situation, because of course he'd turn to humor as soon as she brings up a painful subject. She can't quite bring herself to return his smile in full, not when her head is filled with thoughts of all the tragedy she unearthed in her research.

Before she can stop herself, Rosaline brushes her hand along his cheekbone, as if to retroactively give some comfort to that five-year-old boy who lost so much. Only a moment later does she notice how sudden and out of place the gesture must seem to him. She drops her hand abruptly, hoping he'll think she was just rubbing away some leftover aloe vera goop.

“No. But I've been wondering – why does your uncle think he has such power over you? He and your father both owned equal shares of the company, right? And you inherited all of your father's shares?”

He nods, slowly, definitely wary of where she's going with this.

“So how can he now have the power to force you out? Why didn't your shares grow just as much as his?”

“Because it's been more than twenty years. Times have changed since then. The shares were invested in different areas of the company, which later developed at different speeds.”

“But at the time of your father's death, they were both equally responsible for making up the company's worth. Your uncle was responsible for looking after your share of the company until you came of age. If only _your_ shares happened to suffer, he didn't do a very good job of that did he?”

“How do you know all this?” Benvolio's voice is strained now, his eyes dangerously hard.

“I read up on it, in the newspaper archives at the library. Everything I know is public knowledge, and I haven't talked to anyone about this before now.” She steels herself for what might well turn into another ugly fight. “But I think we should.”

"Should do _what_ , exactly?" 

"Talk to someone. Look into the company history. Figure out how the hell your uncle managed to get a majority of shares out of his half of the company." She shrugs, a little helpless when his expression still doesn't change. "I don't know, it just seems wrong. And knowing your uncle, I wouldn't put it past him to have manipulated things in his favor somehow."

"And what if we really found something to suggest he did?"

"Then we'd finally have _leverage_ against him. Something to show him that he can't play God with people's lives. That he can't treat you like crap and blackmail and terrorise you."

Benvolio still looks unconvinced, a flicker in his eye that suggest trepidation, perhaps even fear. She knows she's asking a lot here, but she still, despite the little breaks they've gotten since then, remembers the night of Romeo's poetry reading, remembers watching him break down in their dark bedroom. She never wants to see him like that again.

“I know it's easy for me to talk about finding things and pressuring your uncle – I'm not the one who risks making things even worse for myself. I get that. But from where I stand, it looks like things are already pretty bad, and you have more to gain than you risk losing. This is your decision to make, and whatever you decide, I'll support you. But I think we should try.”

Rosaline doesn't say anything else anymore, doesn't want to pressure him into making a decision. He may not even want to make it right now, and that would be okay too - what she's planning is a kind of defiance that takes particular courage: standing up to family, to the people who, more than anyone else, should be on your side.

She's about to pick up the jar of aloe vera gel and return it upstairs, an excuse to leave him alone to think, when Benvolio says:

“Alright. Let's try.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosaline has now reached a point where she's pining so hard drowning herself seems like the only way out.  
> Oh, and Juliet's nanny is Nurse, of course.


	15. Chapter 15

Their trip ends the next day, as of course Rosaline had known it must, and over the course of the day, Benvolio gets progressively quieter. By the time they lock up the house and drive off, she's beginning to be seriously worried, and resolved to speak to him about it, and about the task they've set before them, as soon as they're both home alone. 

To her surprise, Benvolio beats her to it, bringing up the topic as soon as she enters the house where he's already waiting in the living-room, tablet on his lap. Apparently, Mercutio wasn't kidding about getting a new record out of his Maserati on the way back.  

"So, here's what I got so far..." Benvolio starts animatedly, and Rosaline sits down next to him, her bag forgotten in the middle of the hallway. 

Benvolio explains the basic set-up of what she's already found out about his father's half of the company and his current part of it, adding a few details that she didn't know yet. 

"But that doesn't really help us yet. If we want to find out what exactly he did with the shares over time, we need to get into the company archives and hope he was cocky enough not to destroy traces of his dealings."

Rosaline is relieved to see him like this, invested in the project instead of scared to take it on - but then, she never doubted his courage. 

Unfortunately, while Benvolio is determined to get started on their research, the practical question holding them back is finding a good pretext for him to suddenly start spending time in the archives in the first place. And it would require quite a lot of time, seeing as the stuff they're looking for might date back into the pre-digitalized era, he would have to find the right files to give them answers in the first place, and  _then_  figure out what to do with those answers. 

Benvolio does look a little intimidated when he lays out those steps, and Rosaline lays a calming hand on his. 

"We'll just take it one step at a time, okay? First get acess to the archives without tipping off your uncle. Then we'll figure out the rest."

And in a stroke of unbelievable luck, Benvolio gets such access handed to him on a silver platter on the very first day after their return: His uncle, no doubt in an attempt to punish him for the transgression of taking a few days off work, informs him that  _Montague & Sons_ have been asked to do a series of guest lectures at a local college, and that the honor of preparing them falls to Benvolio - on top of his regular duties, of course. 

Rosaline would be fuming about it if it wasn't so damn convenient for their scheme: Because Benvolio, once again displaying his talent for subterfuge, decides that for his lecture series, he'll present a variety of highlights from the company's history and detail how they came about, which of course requires him to go into the archive and look at any number of files. Damiano swallows it up, no doubt convinced that he's managed to guilt his nephew into overworking himself again, and Rosaline feels ever more determined to see this thing through, and to topple the Montague patriarch off his petty little throne once and for all. 

A few days later, Benvolio is neck-deep in old files, making more overtime than ever without having found so much as a single clue, and Rosaline's anger keeps quietly building up when Damiano commands them both to appear at a fundraising event for the university. Apparently,  _Montague & Sons_ are among the university's biggest donors, and Damiano expects them both to be present at the mixer, which, as he puts it rather bluntly, might as well be called the "asking Montagues for money"-event. 

As off-putting as that attitude is, however, Rosaline assures him they'll be there and puts on a cute little cocktail dress, determined to get through the evening without letting the elder Montague do anything to destroy Benvolio's carefully nurtured post-beach-relaxation. 

They've barely entered the venue when Damiano asks, very pointedly, if they enjoyed their vacation - implying, of course, that it was somehow indecent of them to assume Benvolio would deserve anything of the kind. 

Rosaline puts on her sweetest smile and makes sure to keep her voice even when she replies: 

"Oh, it's been a wonderful trip! And Ben really needed it, after you've been having so much  _trouble_ with all those  _challenging_ projects lately."

She says it loud enough for anyone within earshot to hear, and the fact that Damiano immediately looks around nervously tells her that she hit him where it hurt: By implying, within hearing range of potential investors, business partners, or avid gossips, that there's any kind of "trouble" at  _Montague & Sons_. 

Damiano mumbles something meaningless and changes the topic, eyes glinting dangerously in Rosaline's direction. Rosaline only keeps up her inane smile and acts as if she'd said nothing at all extraordinary as she waits for Benvolio to get them something to drink. 

Unfortunately, if she thought that she'd successfully silenced the person holding the most power to turn this evening into a disaster, Rosaline was wrong. Tonight, that honor falls to someone else. 

For what no one mentiond about tonight was the fact that representing the Humanities faculty is her own former department, and they've sent their most promising young researcher: the youngest man in the history of the university to be offered tenure - and, coincidentally, the man who broke her heart so thoroughly she's still scrambling to gather up the pieces.

It's especially galling because at first the evening seems to be going remarkably well. After his little quip and her cheeky response, Damiano has been almost mild towards Benvolio, which is equal parts welcome and unnerving. Some of the people he introduces Rosaline to, gleefully showing off the newest addition to what he no doubt considers his personal collection of Capulet heiresses, are genuinely interesting. And Rosaline in turn spots an art history professor whose lectures on the history of figurative painting she attended a few years ago, and whom she remembers fondly as a warm and approachable, if slightly eccentric woman. When she introduces her to Benvolio, the two of them immediately hit it off: after mere minutes of chit-chat, the two start viciously critiquing the paintings lining the walls of their hosts' palatial home, and Rosaline leaves to get a refill on her champagne. 

And that's when she bumps into Escalus, the lingering smile prompted by Benvolio's latest witty criticism dropping off her lips as she suddenly finds herself faced with the man who once made her so happy, and then caused her such misery. 

He's the one who speaks first, after a long moment of stunned silence. 

"Rosaline! It's… it's great to see you." 

"Is it?" Rosaline asks, desperately telling herself not to panic and yet failing to come up with any ideas on how to handle this situation. She used to imagine scenarios in which she might run into him, detailed fantasies where she would deliver scathing and witty put-downs and then saunter off victoriously. 

Now, none of these come to mind. 

"Of course!", he replies, as if anything he's done recently would have given her any reason to assume so. "I really am happy to see you!" He pauses, and then, just as Rosaline decides that the best way to deal with this situation is to remove herself from it entirely, witty put-downs be damned, he blurts out: "I've missed you."

"You've missed me," Rosaline repeats dumbly, and then as the words sink in: "You've  _missed me_?" 

Anger slams into her with such violence that she has to set her champagne flute down, afraid she'll crack it otherwise. 

"You  _broke up_  with me! For no apparent reason, with no explanation, and then I never heard from you again!"

Escalus flinches and, looking around nervously, pulls her away from the bar and into a quiet corner of the room. 

"I… There _was_ a reason."

"It better be a good one." 

"The Dean saw us together. He suspected we were having an affair and, well, he told me that it would reflect badly on the University and on my career if it came out." 

"We knew that. It's why everything was always such a big secret, remember?"

She sure hopes he does, because Rosaline remembers: how frustrating it was to have her aunt talk her up to every eligible bachelor in town, and not be able to tell her that she was already taken. To sneak Escalus out of her apartment in the morning, always after checking carefully that no one they knew happened to be walking by. To see him schmooze donors at events just like this one, turning up his charm at middle-aged trophy wives and their husbands to get them to loosen their purse strings. 

Oh, she remembers. 

The memories, so sudden and painful, distract her for a moment before she realizes something else:

"In any case, if the Dean was threatening us, why couldn't you just tell me? We could have figured something out!" 

She could have had a chance, she realizes, to fight for the love of her life. And he took that away from her. 

"I thought it would be easier for you this way." 

For a moment, Rosaline's chest constricts so tightly it hurts;  _everything_ about this  _hurts_. But what hurts the most is how badly Escalus seems to have misjudged her - or how little he must have known her all along. Otherwise, how could he ever think she'd prefer "easy" over being given a fighting chance?

"Easier? Nothing about this was  _easy_ for me."

"And I'm so, so sorry about that... I regret how I handled things back then. I regret so many things, Rosaline…" 

He steps closer, sounding impossibly sad and soft as he says her name, and it makes her even more angry but in that horrible, petrifying way; where   
your throat closes up and you can't breathe or speak or even think… 

And that's when she hears her name again. 

"Rosaline?" 

She's confused for a moment, because Escalus wasn't speaking, but then it wasn't his voice anyway… 

And with dread pooling in her stomach, Rosaline realises who said her name just as Benvolio appears by her side. If there's one thing that could make   
this encounter any more unpleasant, it has to be revealing the whole Vegas-mess to Escalus.

"I've been looking for you babe! There's someone I'd like you to meet..." 

Maybe, Rosaline thinks with desperate, irrational hope, maybe she won't have to explain it. Maybe if she's quick about it, she can take the chance Benvolio just offered her and get out of this situation without making it any more humiliating…

"I'm sorry, and you are?" 

Nope, Rosaline thinks resignedly, apparently Escalus is determined to drag this out. And Benvolio is not helping: He curls one arm around her waist and pulls her gently into his side - a clearly proprietary gesture. Its message is not lost on Escalus: His eyes flicker back and forth between them, his eyebrows knitting together for a moment and then shooting up his forehead as Benvolio introduces himself. 

"Benvolio Montague. Rosaline's husband." 

He holds out his hand, blatantly acting like he doesn't notice that the tension around them is thick enough to cut with a knife, as if the appearance of an outrageously attractive ex didn't faze him in the least. Rosaline has to admit: the sheer bravado of Benvolio's act is impressive - and just what she needs to startle her out of her stupor. 

"Ben, this is Escalus, from my old department at the University."

She deliberately chose the most distanced way possible to introduce him, no hint at any former connection between them, and the way Escalus reels back a little at her words is infinitely satisfying. 

"Nice to meet you," Benvolio says, smiling jovially in a way that eerily reminds Rosaline of his uncle. "And congratulations - looks like your faculty will snag quite a few donations tonight, judging by the guest list." 

The words are a clear dig at the purpose of this evening, which is basically for researchers like Escalus to suck up to rich people and hope for their generosity - and Benvolio hams up the "douchey rich guy"-angle with palpable pleasure. 

Escalus seems stunned into silence, whether by the news that she got married or by her apparent choice of husband Rosaline isn't sure. Either way, it's enough to break the spell he wove over her, and Rosaline turns slightly towards Benvolio, bringing her even closer into his space. 

"You said you wanted to introduce me to someone?" 

"Yes," he says, turning his head to smile at Rosaline, and suddenly his attention is fixed firmly on her, as if they were alone and her ex wasn't standing right next to them. "The Schaeffers are pestering me for an introduction. Apparently, I've been gushing about you so glowingly they can't wait to meet you."

An embarrassed little laugh follows his coy smile - he really is taking the whole besotted newlywed-shtick up to eleven. Rosaline couldn't be more thankful. 

"Well then, let's not make them wait." 

Benvolio nods once more in Escalus' direction as he takes Rosaline's hand. 

"Happy hunting!" 

The words are little more than a casual throwaway, meant to show that his attention is already elsewhere, and before Escalus can answer, Benvolio turns and leaves, pulling Rosaline along. She's not sure where he's steering them except away from Escalus, and that's all she needs to know. For now, Rosaline is thankful to have someone else take charge while her mind is a confused, jumbled mess. 

"Who are the Schaeffers?", she eventually asks, even though she couldn't care less.

"No idea. I saw their name on a place-card. You just looked like you wanted to be anywhere else than here just now." 

Rosaline nods dumbly - he's definitely not wrong about that. 

"I take it that was your ex?" 

Another nod while Benvolio continues to zigzag them through the room. Rosaline smiles stiffly at everyone they pass, just in case she should know them. Now that the first shock of seeing Escalus, of speaking to him, has worn off, she feels nauseous. 

"Want to get out of here?", Benvolio asks with a sideways look at her, and Rosaline has never been more thankful for him. 

"God yes." 

It's not far to the exit from where they're standing, and Rosaline wonders if he's been steering them there the entire time, if he anticipated something like this. Benvolio deposits her by the coat check while he goes to tell the valet to get his car, and by the time the coat check girl hands her their jackets, he's back to steer her out the door to his waiting car. 

"What about your uncle? Shouldn't we have told him goodbye?" 

"Probably. But he would have found reasons for us to stay longer. And frankly, you're not exactly a sparkling conversationalist right now." 

"Oh fuck off," Rosaline mutters while she fastens her seatbelt, her trembling hands fumbling with the clasp, but there's no real heat behind it, and Benvolio doesn't reply, concentrating instead on making it out the narrow gate. 

Only when they're out on the street does he speak again. 

"Are you okay?" 

And for the first time in a long time, Rosaline allows herself to answer truthfully. 

"No. I'm not." And, since she already admitted this much, Rosaline plows on, the words tumbling out of her without restraint or thought. "He never told me why he broke up, you know. Until tonight." Recalling Escalus' explanation, she laughs bitterly. "And it's such a  _stupid_ reason!" 

Benvolio listens as she explains it all: the secrecy, the at best questionable ethics of their relationship, the way she kept telling herself it was not a big deal, that they could totally set aside their feelings when it came to the matter of her thesis. In hindsight, that was laughably naive, and the catastrophic end of their relationship was something they should have seen coming. They should have made other plans, should have at least tried getting someone else to be her thesis advisor. Instead, they had closed their eyes to the reality of their situation and hoped, like little children playing hide-and-seek, that the problem would magically disappear if they simply refused to acknowledge it. 

In a way, what happened had been inevitable - but they could have faced it together. 

"But he didn't even tell me, can you believe it? He just decided that the best thing to do would be to break up and never speak to me again." 

She pauses, takes a deep, breath, and then finally comes to her conclusion: 

"That's what gets me about this, you know? He never even gave me a choice." 

"And he wants to give you that choice now?" Benvolio asks, cautiously, and Rosaline realises that of course this must be what's on his mind now: Is   
she contemplating ending their fake relationship to get back with her ex? 

"I don't know. He said he missed me. I don't know what that means, what he wants now…" 

"Fuck what he wants," Benvolio says as he pulls up in front of their house and parks the car, voice calm but with a tense edge to it, "what do  _you_ want?" 

And that, Rosaline has to admit, she does not know. She only knows one thing: She doesn't think she'll ever be able to trust Escalus again - not after he made such a huge decision without even consulting her.

"I don't know," Rosaline replies, truthfully again, and gets out of the car.

By the time they've reached the door, Benvolio seems to have got the message that she's not in the mood to talk about this any more. 

They don't really get an opportunity anyway, because Mercutio is in the kitchen, concocting some sort of experiment that seems to involve mainly a lot of different types of alcohol. And while alcohol seems appealing right now, the thought of having to endure company to get it is not, even company as charming as Mercutio's. Rosaline quickly swivels left to head up the stairs - but is still too slow to escape. 

"Hey, Mrs. Montague, you better get your ass back down here. You're invited to the world premiere of my new signature cocktail." 

There's a murmured response from Benvolio, followed by Mercutio's confused "What? Why?" 

This time, she understands Benvolio's answer: 

"Just give her some space, okay?" 

Rosaline continues upstairs, glad to have dodged that bullet. Who'd have thought, she thinks, almost smiling despite the tears scratching at the back of her eyes, that a Montague - and this Montague in particular - would be her knight in shining armour one day? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there goes another little chapter!  
> Also, I may have written myself into a bit of a corner with the mystery of how Damiano handled the company because I do in fact not know how companies work. If anyone wanted to explain stuff about that to me (for example, how do shares work?), I would be very happy.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I've got a new chapter done. After Carrieeve helped me work through a lot of details regarding the company and Benvolio's position like the hero she is, I now need help with the question of how getting your PhD works in the US, if anyone wanted to help with that...

The next morning, Rosaline sleeps in so late even Mercutio has gone out by the time she gets up. She spent hours last night laying awake and staring at the ceiling, resisting the urge to toss and turn so as not to wake Benvolio. She pretended to be asleep when he came in, not entirely sure why - after all, he proved capable of listening on the way home, and she's sure he would be willing to do so again. 

But Rosaline was mulishly determined to suffer alone then, and this morning, her mood is accordingly dour. After a listless and ultimately failed attempt to prepare a proper breakfast and do something productive, Rosaline gives up and does the opposite instead: she cancels all attempts at productivity and spends the rest of the morning in the bathtub. She doesn't have a shift at the coffee shop scheduled today, so whenever the water threatens to go cold, she just replaces some of it with hot water again to spend some more time staring out the window and brooding. 

Theoretically, she knew she was going to run into Escalus again at some point - and yet nothing could have prepared her for the reality of it, or for finally finding out what the hell happened. 

For months she's been driving herself crazy wondering how he could just end things like that, and never look back. The worst thing about it was wondering if he ever really cared about her at all, and she knows now that he did - still does, perhaps. There's no doubt in her mind about it: The way he looked at her, the way he said "I've missed you" - that was real. 

She doesn't know if that makes it better or worse. 

Because what else was real is the fact that he hurt her, pushed her away because he didn't trust her to help with their situation, and now, Rosaline can't trust  _him_ anymore. Escalus always did prefer to deal with his problems alone, and she tried to be understanding but it always wore her down, this feeling of being shut out. It's even more apparent how much it bothered her now that she's experienced the opposite: being confided in and treated like an equal partner, someone who can help work on a solution to pressing problems, and doesn't need to be shielded from harsh realities. 

With a start, Rosaline realises just who she's comparing Escalus to - and how clear the contrast is despite the wildly different contexts of both relationships. It would be funny, honestly, if it wasn't so damn sad: The guy she accidentally, drunkenly got married to and somehow decided to stick with turned out to be a better partner than her actual boyfriend of several months. 

That thought is what makes the decision for her: This entire situation definitely warrants daydrinking. She's just deciding whether or not that plan is worth getting out of the bathtub for when her phone rings, abruptly cutting off the mellow, brooding-enhancing music she's put on and shattering the illusion of calm she tried to create. 

Her greeting is curt and sharp.

"No need to bite my head off, Capulet - I only wanted to see how you're holding up."

"Oh." Rosaline doesn't know what to say to that. "I'm okay. Mopey and about to get drunk, but otherwise okay."

There's a moment of silence, and Rosaline is sure if she saw him right now she'd see his face full of doubt. Instead of voicing it, however, he blurts out: 

"Where are you? There's a weird echo to your voice."

"I'm in the bathtub."

"Don' tell me you're trying to drown yourself again."

"Can't a girl enjoy a nice, relaxing bath every once in a while?"

"At two in the afternoon?"

"Why the hell not?" Rosaline flinches at how petulant she sounds.

"For one thing, because I'm pretty sure alcohol and slippery bathroom tiles don't mix."

"Are you sure you're not secretly an 80-year-old woman?" 

"I'm the only one with some common sense around here, apparently." There's an exasperated sigh at the other end of the line. "I mean it though, please be careful. Otherwise I have to send  one of the wonderpuppies to watch over you."

A laugh bubbles out of her, so unexpected Rosaline isn't sure where it came from. 

"That's quite a threat."

"And don't think I won't do it."

"Relax, grandma. Will you hold back the S.W.A.T. team if I promise to get out of the bathtub before I start drinking?" 

"I will." 

Once this deal is struck and Rosaline has hung up the phone, she decides that perhaps it really is time to get out of the tub. The water is turning tepid once more, and the skin on her fingertips is shrivelled like a raisin.

Unfortunately, turning off her thoughts isn't quite as easy as turning off the water. But making coffee and a hearty breakfast at least gives her hands something to do while her brain keeps circling the same questions again and again: What happens now? Escalus said he missed her - does that mean he wants her back? That he's not finished with them after all? And if so: is she going to take him back? 

She's on her second cup of coffee when it occurs to her how futile these thoughts are: she's trying to answer a question she hasn't even been asked yet. After all, Escalus hasn't tried to contact her since last night. So what's the point of trying to decide now whether or not she'd give Escalus another chance when he hasn't even asked for one? Not to mention that their external circumstances may have changed, but not in a way that makes things any easier: 

Then again, as Benvolio pointed out last night, there is one question she  _should_  be able to answer independently of what Escalus may or may not want, regardless of the logistics of her marriage and her thesis and everything else that might complicate things: What does  _she_ want? 

And that, Rosaline finds and groans in frustration, that is just another question she doesn't have an answer to. Which is odd, because if someone had asked her at any time during the months right after they broke up if she wanted Escalus back, her answer would have been: Yes. It would have required one hell of an apology and a lot of explaining, but she would have taken him back. 

Now... now she isn't so sure. 

And, she realises eventually with the kind of brutal honesty that she always found rather freeing, Rosaline doesn't think she'll answer that particular question right now. It's time to think about something else. 

After all, it's not like she doesn't have plenty of other things to worry about. Benvolio may have gained entry to the company archives at  _Montague & Sons_, but since he doesn't want to neglect his other duties and raise suspicions, he doesn't have the time to do more than copy any and all files that look like they might be of interest, and bring them home to look through in the evening. Rosaline helps, sorting through the files and highlighting specific transactions Benvolio told her to look out for. It's a slow process, and Rosaline decides that she may as well use her free day to try and make some headway. 

She quickly texts Benvolio to let him know that she got out of the bathtub safely - being, after all, a sea goddess for whom a puny bathtub is no match - and then turns her attention towards the files. She goes through all the ones Benvolio brought, highlighting anything that might be of interest and setting them aside for him to look through later. 

That fills most of the rest of the afternoon, and by the time she runs out of files, Rosaline still has enough energy left to get out her notes and a few of her most promising sources and spend some more time reading for her thesis. Her plan to daydrink is forgotten and remains so.

Inevitably, work on her thesis makes her think of Escalus again - but luckily, by now her research focus has shifted so much that he wouldn't be a good fit to supervise it anyway. Which, unfortunately, still leaves her with the problem of not having a thesis supervisor, but she'll deal with that problem when she's got an abstract ready to submit. 

By the time Benvolio gets back with Thai food and more copied files, Rosaline is sober, hungry, and in a much better mood. While they eat, she gives him a quick overview of everything she found that might be of interest, and Benvolio shares a pleasant surprise: the professor she introduced him to the other night was apparently so charmed that she invited them both to a dinner party next week, an invitation both of them are happy to accept. 

Food, conversation, and a new batch of files make the rest of the evening pass quickly and quietly. Still, when Rosaline goes to bed, she can't quite keep herself from thinking of Escalus, skirting the unpleasant memories of last night in favor of skipping back to happier, if perhaps not exactly simpler times. It still hurts a little to think of those times - but to her surprise, the pain, after being buried under other concerns for so long, has dulled. Beyond all the hurt and anger overshadowing it, remembering her time with Escalus no longer triggers the sharp sting of loss. Instead, what she feels is much more like the slight ache of nostalgia for something that can't be retrieved but that need no longer be mourned, like basking in childhood memories or looking at photographs of a wonderful holiday. 

It's an odd sensation, Rosaline thinks, and that's about the last coherent thought before she drifts off. 

She wakes up at a more reasonable time the next morning, early enough for the kitchen to still smell deliciously of freshly-brewed coffee. While she pours it, Rosaline keeps waiting for yesterday's gloom to set in again - but to her surprise, nothing of the sort happens. She's well-rested, mostly cheerful, and above all ready to go back to work - so that's exactly what she does. 

***

 

Between Benvolio's files, her notes, and a quick trip to the library (with a detour past her favorite little shop to look for a birthday gift for Livia), the day passes quickly, and soon enough, Rosaline is torn out of a fascinating book by Benvolio's return. Since he claims to be starving, Rosaline quickly orders some pizza and then sets about making a quick salad to go with it while Benvolio changes, and they're in the middle of debating which wine to have with it when the doorbell rings.

Rosaline opens the door, expecting to see the pizza delivery guy, only to find herself unexpectedly facing none other than the man she's been mostly successful at not thinking about all day. While wearing sweatpants and a ratty old shirt - and not the casually cute sort of old shirt that would mark her as a  _cool girl_ , just hanging out and not giving a fuck about her appearance.

“Escalus?”

“Hi,” he says and then nothing else, which doesn't make the whole thing easier at all.

“What are you doing here?”, she eventually blurts out, because let's face it, there's no saving her dignity in any case.

“I talked to Isabella and… I'm worried about you.”

He falls silent again. Rosaline stares at him, flabbergasted and sure that she must look about as attractive right now as the word “flabbergasted” sounds. Her mind, clearly in shock, takes the opportunity to begin idly wondering about the origin of the word – what does it even mean? Who came up with it?

Escalus launches into a sort of mission statement, and Rosaline forces herself to listen.

“We didn't end things on very good terms, and suddenly you're doing all this crazy stuff. I mean, getting married, in Vegas? To a guy you barely even knew?”

He takes a step closer, reaches out as if to take her hand and then doesn't. His hand falls back to his side uselessly, and Rosaline is strangely relieved.

“That doesn't sound like you at all. And I can't help but feel responsible for it, somehow.”

His voice is warm and soft – his voice always was one of his best features, apart from the general handsomeness – and for a moment, Rosaline feels the old urge to let it wash over her, to sink forward into him and tell him all about how terribly she's been doing ever since they broke up.

But then, that wouldn't be entirely true, would it? She was a wreck for most of that time, yes, and seeing him again the other night did not exactly elevate her mood – but just now, she's actually been feeling pretty good about herself. She spent the afternoon wrangling her research notes into a passable first draft for a thesis abstract, found a beautiful scarf for Livia's upcoming birthday, and at the very same moment Escalus was ringing her doorbell (to come rescue her? lecture her? do  _what_ , exactly?) she was standing in the kitchen, joking around with Benvolio and about to settle the wine question with surprisingly little bickering.

After all that anger and misery and wishing he would come after her and tell her that he made a terrible mistake, by the time Escalus seems finally ready to do so, she doesn't actually need him to anymore.

The realisation stuns her into silence.

“Rosaline? Say something, please. Tell me if there's anything I can do.”

Before she can reply, Benvolio's voice rings out from the hallway behind her.

“What's taking so long? Did they forget the...” He breaks off abruptly when he reaches her by the door and sees who she's been talking to.

“Do I know you?”, Benvolio asks their visitor, knowing full well that he does. Rosaline wonders idly if he learned that incredibly petty move in one of his negotiation seminars, then forces her thoughts back to the situation at hand, which is Escalus glaring daggers at Benvolio.

“I'm...”, he begins, but Rosaline cuts him off.

“Leaving. Thank you for your concern, Escalus, but there's nothing I need you to do. I'm doing just fine.”

Then she abruptly steps back into the hallway, almost making Benvolio trip and fall over as he moves out of the way, and closes the door after them.

She stops in the middle of the hallway and simply breathes in deeply, a little startled by her own audacity.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Benvolio watching her, not quite worried but attentive in case he should be, and just when she's about to tell him there's no need to...

… the doorbell rings again.

Benvolio is at the door before her, face hard and eyes blazing, but it turns out to actually be the pizza delivery guy this time, with no sign of Escalus anywhere nearby. While Benvolio takes care of the pizza, Rosaline walks blindly back to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine, too stunned by the encounter to even know what to think.

By the time Benvolio comes in and sets two pizza cartons down on the counter, she's still staring into space.

“What did he want?” Benvolio asks casually while he opens the boxes and puts two slices on each of their plates. 

“He said he was worried about me.”

Benvolio looks up from the plates, a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth.

“Why?"

“Apparently, he thought that marrying you is a sign that I'm having some kind of nervous breakdown.”

“More like a sign of a low tolerance for alcohol,” Benvolio chuckles, but Rosaline doesn't feel like laughing about the encounter just yet.

Benvolio seems to notice, for his expression turns serious again.

“If you ask me, he's a dick,” Benvolio says through a mouthful of pizza, and Rosaline, who by now has pulled herself together enough to reach for a slice herself, accidentally bites down too hard and burns her lip on hot tomato sauce.

“He came over becaushe he wash wowied,” she slurs around the hot piece of pizza in her mouth, but Benvolio only shrugs.

“Why should he be worried? Are you in danger? Are your friends worried?” She wasn't imagining it before, that flash of anger when he thought Escalus was still there – it's back now, in his eyes and his voice as he talks, gesturing agitatedly with his half-eaten slice of pizza. “He's not _worried_ about you because you decided to marry me. He just doesn't like it.”

“And that makes him a dick?”

“Yeah. Because it means he doesn't trust you to make your own decisions, no matter how terrible.”

That's... something she hadn't considered yet.

“You're a grown-ass woman. If you decide to get married to some random guy, that's your decision, and none of his business.”

He sounds so ferocious that Rosaline can't help the smile tugging at her lips.

“That's very feminist of you, defending a woman's right to make terrible decisions.”

Benvolio guffaws, spraying pizza crumbs all over the kitchen island, then swallows the whole remaining mouthful in one impressive gulp.

“Everyone gets to make terrible decisions, as long as they deal with the aftermath. And I think you've done a pretty good job of that.”

It's a strange experience: If someone had asked her a year ago whose opinion she valued more between Escalus and  _Benvolio Montague_ , Rosaline would have laughed in their face. Now, she actually feels flattered by something as illogical as being praised for how she handled her drunk accidental marriage.

But that's the thing, isn't it: Escalus only knows about the stupid thing she did. Benvolio was there to see the good she created out of it. And that, Rosaline knows with sudden clarity, is what she wants to hold on to. 

After all, what would be the point of continuing to tear open old wounds just to wallow in memories and self-pity? Looking back means trying to resuscitate a relationship that she's more and more certain is finished for good. No matter how much she may have loved Escalus once, it doesn't change anything about the fact that she just doesn't trust him anymore. 

Looking forward, on the other hand, means focusing on getting back to the academic field that's been her passion for the past years, and that she knows now she does not want to give up on. It means trying to find a way to get justice for a friend who helped her through a difficult time, in his own snarky, gently caring way. It means she's got her hands full with projects she enjoys sinking her teeth into, and that's easily better than sitting around and moping. 

It's time to look forward instead of back.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack (to writing, that is)! Credit for that goes to Carrieeve, who listened to me whine about writer's block and encouraged me to go through with... well, basically this entire chapter. This may be the most indulgent chapter yet, tbh.  
> No guarantees will be made about any of the technical details described hereafter.

If her life was a book, Rosaline is sure telling Escalus she doesn't need him anymore would be the end of his part in it, the beginning of a new chapter where he's nothing more than a footnote from her early years. With the weight of their dreaded confrontation off her shoulders, she would move straight on to whatever else life holds in store for her; confident and unafraid and determinedly happy.

Unfortunately, things aren't quite that easy.

She doesn't regret sending him away, no, but that doesn't mean her mind won't take every opportunity to circle around the events of that evening again and again, and drag up every other memory she had of him in the process too, not quite used yet to suddenly not needing to want him anymore.

During the day, she can at least try and keep her wandering thoughts in check as she works, although with less than satisfactory results. But as soon as she lies down to sleep, the darkness and quiet turn into a stage for Escalus to make his grand appearance for constant replays of their last two encounters.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, Benvolio starts sneaking into her dreams and half-waking thoughts as well, vying for attention with Escalus and making the whole experience even more surreal. There's one image in particular that makes her wake up with a gasp: Benvolio the way he looked when he went to open the door the other night, just about ready to chew Escalus out. That flash of his eyes, the determined set of his jaw make an appearance in her dream too, but they take on a different meaning, one that touches on something primal deep inside her.… And when she wakes up, heart racing and curls sticking to her temples, he's _right there_ , close enough to touch and yet so very off-limits.

Needless to say, Rosaline is beyond grumpy when she joins Benvolio for breakfast on Saturday morning. She feels off-kilter, out of control, and increasingly irritated at her own apparent inability to just let things go.

It doesn't take long for Benvolio to notice, seeing as she gets out a mug and pours herself some coffee with a lot more banging and cursing than the simple task should require.

Benvolio watches her over his bowl of cereal.

"You're in a charming mood, Capulet."

He called her that in her dream as well, a spat-out challenge, and the memory sends a zing through her that only heightens her irritation.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," she snaps back, then immediately feels bad about it - for once, she can't possibly blame him for anything except perhaps a knack for doing and saying exactly the right things.

"You're mad," he observes, pauses. Then, hesitantly: "At me?"

He says it like it's at all plausible, and Rosaline knows by now that he absolutely does think it is. Without any of her own doing, her voice goes soft.

"Of course not."

"At him?" The "him" in question doesn't need to be specified.

"Maybe. Maybe I'm mad at myself.” She gathers up her curls to tame them into a bun, more to have something to occupy her hands than because it actually bothers her, but the stretched-out hair-tie snaps when she fumbles it off her wrist. Rosaline gives up on the effort with a frustrated sigh. “I just... I don't know."

Rosaline takes a sip of the coffee that resisted so valiantly against being poured, trying to wrangle her thoughts into coherence as she does.

"I thought I would be done with him now. I met him again, something I dreaded for the longest time. I managed to talk to him without freaking out, and to find out what happened. I told him what I think of his brilliant choices. And I told him to fuck off. So why the hell am I _still_ thinking about the whole thing? I already decided I don't want him back. What else is there to  _do_?"

Now there's a whiff of helplessness ringing from her voice that irritates her even more, and that makes her cut off Benvolio as he opens his mouth.

“And if you tell me to be patient and wait until it passes, I will dump that bowl of cereal over your head.”

Benvolio's lips twitch.

"I wasn't going to. I have noticed by now that you're not exactly the most patient person.”

Rosaline huffs. But she's got nothing to dispute him, and he's currently looking at her in _that_ way, studying her with an intensity that answers the question of how the hell he manages to make such detailed drawings of people from memory. She wonders what details he's picking up about her right now, and if there would be enough stored in his memory for him to draw her yet.

“Need a way to blow off some steam?”

The offer in Benvolio's words puts an immediate halt to her rambling musings.

“Why, do you know one?”

Unbidden, she finds herself thinking of what he might mean, with one option in particular pushing itself to the forefront of her mind. But he couldn't possibly mean _that_ , could he?

“I do,” he smiles and gets up. Rosaline's throat goes dry as she watches him move towards her, closer and closer until he comes to a halt before her... claps his hands on her shoulders, turns her around, and pushes her towards the stairs.

“Put on some workout gear. We're leaving in five minutes.”

***

 

It takes a little longer than five minutes, because Rosaline hasn't so much as unpacked her workout clothes and has to dig them out from one of the leftover boxes in Mercutio's room. But eventually, she's ready to go in leggings, a tank top, and a fresh hair tie to get her hair out of the way, and she has to admit that maybe chasing off her little funk with physical exercise may not be the worst idea.

Benvolio refuses to disclose what type of exercise exactly he's planning for them, and Rosaline is more than a little curious by the time he parks the car outside a squat warehouse.

With its crumbling brick walls, grimy windows and faded paint, it doesn't exactly look like the kind of high-end gym she would have expected Benvolio to attend – but then again, she should have learned by now not to make snap judgments when it comes to Benvolio Montague.

So she tries to keep an open mind when he holds open the heavy metal door for her, looking around curiously. The surroundings are less than glamorous, but as soon as they reach the end of the narrow entranceway and step into the open space, Rosaline understands why this is what he considers the right place to vent: It's a boxing gym, complete with a ring on a raised platform in the middle of the space and rows of punching bags along the walls.

"You box?"

"I used to. Believe me, this place kept me out of a lot of trouble when I had my rebellious teen phase."

Rosaline nods as she takes in the information, marvelling at how easy these kinds of confidences pass between them now. She pushes the thought aside and steps closer to the nearest punching bag, giving it an experimental swat that sends it swinging gently.

"So, you're saying I should just punch something until I feel better?"

"Or someone," Benvolio adds, and she thinks that sounds even better. "But first, a very brief technical introduction, or I'll get chewed out for letting you endanger yourself."

It's unclear who exactly would chew them out, because the place is empty save for a lone fighter going to town on a punching  bag in the farthest corner. Now that she's gotten used to the smell of sweat and old leather, Rosaline thinks she likes it here; in this long, empty room that looks like time stopped passing here at some point, leaving behind nothing but the distant rhythmic pounding of fists against a punching bag and the dust motes drifting through slabs of light from the skylight.

"You can take my gloves", Benvolio says as he fishes a pair of black boxing gloves out of his gym bag, their leather cracked and worn with use, "they'll be a little too big, but for now, they're enough."

He helps her slip them on, pulling the straps tight enough to make it almost unnoticeable that the gloves are indeed a little wide.

"Now, the most important thing is to always protect your face…"

He shows her how to hold her hands to cover her face, then moves on to demonstrating the correct stance, knees shoulder-width apart and slightly bent, torso curled in and tense. He taps her stomach playfully with the back of his hand.

"This is part of your defense, so always keep your core tight."

Rosaline doubts she has enough core strength to keep anything tight in the first place, but she sort of clenches her stomach in a way that feels like it might be what he means, and Benvolio nods.

"Good, that's a good start."

She feels oddly pleased at the praise, on top of her rising surprise at how well Benvolio is explaining everything. Who would have thought he'd have a knack for teaching?

"Alright, I think you're ready to punch some things."

"That's what I was waiting to hear!"

Rosaline turns towards the nearest punching bag, tenses her arm and lets her fist crash forward with all her might... and next to no results. The bag barely even swings faster, and if it was an opponent, she's pretty sure she wouldn't have so much as slowed him down.

Benvolio chuckles, and she turns her head to glare at him.

"You know, I could just forego the punching bag and come right at you instead."

"I'm pretty sure I can take you, Capulet."

Despite this cocky (though probably true) claim, he ducks out of her way, walking a few steps to a rack on the wall and retrieving a kind of rectangular, stiff cushion.

"Don't beat yourself up though - those things are heavy. Let's try something else first."

He slips his hands into straps on the back of the cushion and holds it up.

"Alright, take a swing at me."

Rosaline grins.

"With pleasure."

She pulls back as far as she can and gives it her all, throwing everything she's got behind her fist - and once again, "everything she's got" doesn't seem to be very much at all. Benvolio barely even sways under the impact of her blow, and the only thing that indicates he even felt it is the strain of his biceps as he holds the pillow up.

"I thought this was supposed to make me less frustrated, not _more_. Apparently I have the upper body strength of a four-year-old."

"Nah, that's not the problem. You've got good muscle tone. The problem is that you're punching only with your arm."

That's… oddly complimentary as well as truly baffling.

"What else am I supposed to punch with?"

"Your entire body. You've got to throw your weight behind it. Like this…"

He drops the practice cushion to step closer and turn her towards the punching bag.

"Take your fighting stance," he commands, and Rosaline immediately obeys, knees bending, arms rising to cover her face.

"Now, when you throw your punch, don't just move your arm..." His hand is on her shoulder suddenly, the other one on her back as he exerts slight pressure to turn her shoulder forward. "…turn your shoulders into the movement as well."

He takes a step backwards and she tries another punch, keeping in mind his advice and turning her shoulder into the movement.

"Good. Now, if you really want to make an impact, you need to use your hips too.…"

And that's exactly where his hands go next, framing her hips just below the elastic waistband of her leggings, fingertips dipping into her flesh when he turns her hips the same way he just directed the movement of her shoulders.

Except this time, he's not touching her _shoulders_ , something she's suddenly very aware of. With her tank top reaching down  to the top of her thighs, there are several layers of clothes between them, and yet Rosaline thinks she can feel his palms burning right into her skin. She wonders just how close behind her he's standing right now - judging by the range of forward motion his arm still has, and the fact that she can feel her piled-up hair bump into something whenever she turns her head, she guesses the answer is: very close.

At the other end of the gym, the sound of punching and grunting stops, and in the sudden silence, Rosaline is sure he can hear the frantic thump of her heart, the drag of her laboured breath.

Well, Rosaline thinks resignedly, if the aim of this outing was to help her stop being mad at Escalus, they achieved that - by now, she's mostly annoyed at herself for failing so spectacularly to get a grip and just fucking _focus_. After all, isn't this exactly the kind of adrenaline-fuel that should translate well into athletic energy?

But when Benvolio tells her to try another punch, she fumbles it worse than before, unable to make sense of the tangle of limbs and nerves that used to be a fairly well-functioning body up until two minutes ago.

"No, don't just tilt your hips forward. It has to be one fluid movement, one simultaneous push and pull."

Now Rosaline is definitely lost, unable to mentally process how the hell she's supposed to push and pull at the same time.

And Benvolio is certainly not helping: Instead of explaining, he lifts his right hand to her biceps, bending so close that she can feel his breath rush past her neck, and then slides it, slowly, from her arm to her shoulder, down her ribs and across her back until it meets his other hand at her left hip.

"You're overthinking it. Don't try to memorise actions for individual body parts - they're not separate, they're all along the same line, connected by the muscles that you draw your strength from." Torturously slowly, his hand travels back up again the same way. "It's all one movement," his hand reaches her biceps again but doesn't stop, continuing its journey instead until his fist closes around her wrist. "And it all comes together in your fist when you throw your punch."

He mimics the movement, pushing her fist forward and at the same time turning her left hip outward - and suddenly, everything else falls in line too; her right fist and shoulder following the trajectory of her arm and adding their force to the movement, all the way to the punching bag before them. The rounded tip of her gloved hand hits the leather with a dull smack, and for a moment, neither of them moves. The forward motion leaves Benvolio stretched out along her body, his head resting just above her raised shoulder and his chest pressed against her back so closely she can't tell if it's his heartbeat she feels thumping through her ribcage or her own.

She wonders what would happen if she turned her head to look at him right now, but she's too scared to try and find out. (Later, she will tell herself it wasn't fear that kept her frozen in place but necessary caution, but it will ring false even to her own mind.) Still, there's the urge to lean back into him, let his hands catch her and take over completely...

With a strangled roar and the responding slap of a forceful punch, the fighter at the other end of the room resumes his training. Benvolio drops his hands and steps away from her, clearing his throat as he picks up the training cushion again.

"I think you've got it. Let's try again."

Rosaline doesn't need to be asked twice, wound up as she is. How dare he bring her here to help her relax and then do everything in his power to make sure she does no such thing? How dare he just move into her personal space and touch her without it feeling invasive and unwanted? And how dare he have the power to make her forget about everything else when he does?

He has no right, she thinks as her fist smashes into the training cushion, no right at all, and this time her shoulder and hip move along seamlessly, united along the invisible line he etched into her body with his hand.

This time, when her fist hits the pillow Benvolio staggers a little under its force.

Then he smiles, wide and full of pride.

"Again!", he commands, and Rosaline is already back in position to fling herself forward again and again and again, continuing her inner angry monologue but this time remembering the reason they came here in the first place, the man whose presence in her mind has robbed her of her peace ever since he popped back into her life. She throws all her simmering anger at Escalus into her punches, then adds the mounting strain of being around Benvolio and wanting to be anything but friends when really, she should be thankful that they're even friends at all given their history. And just like that muddled state of mind made for very bad sleep, it makes for very good punching, and Rosaline continues happily until Benvolio lowers the cushion and calls for a break.

Rosaline grimaces, but she does agree that perhaps a short breather would be good - she is pretty winded, sweat running down her spine and making her top stick to her back.

"Now, let's try and combine a few different punches..."

Benvolio demonstrates different types of punches and she copies them, then tries the combinations he teaches her. She repeats them with ever increasing speed, force and precision, until her arms are burning and she's a sweaty mess and her head is blissfully empty.

"Alright, I think you've got enough."

Rosaline wants to protest, but at this point, even the boxing gloves feel heavy enough to weigh her down, so perhaps he's right. She tears open the straps with her teeth and pulls off the gloves, wriggling her stiff fingers and stretching her back and arms as she takes deep breaths.

Finally, her mind and body feel like they're hers again, back under her control as they should be. It feels good, good enough for her to decide to forgive Benvolio for wreaking havoc on her mind earlier. He probably didn't mean to do it, probably wasn't even aware what kind of effect he was having on her.

Feeling thus pacified, Rosaline hands back the boxing gloves.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replies and studies her again. "Did it help?"

"It did," Rosaline admits freely, allows herself to enjoy his triumphant smile for a moment. And then, with her head finally cleared, one thought that has been lurking at the back of her mind finally dislodges and comes close enough to grasp: "I know who we can ask to help us make a case against your uncle.”

Benvolio pauses mid-movement to look at her expectantly, his shirt lifted halfway up his chest because he was about to dab the sweat off his brow with it. It's a rather distracting sight, but thanks to her new, zen-like levels of calm and control - or perhaps due to sheer exhaustion - Rosaline manages to keep her focus.

“Isabella!”

“Your ex's sister Isabella?”

“Well, sure, that's going to be a little awkward. But she's also my friend – I'm sure she'll help us.”

Benvolio seems skeptical, but he apparently decides to follow her lead in trusting Isabella – a decision it doesn't take him longer than a deep breath to make, she notes.

"Let's ask her then."

***

 

Rosaline doesn't immediately get around to calling Isabella, however: When they get home, it is to find Mercutio sitting in the kitchen with Livia and Juliet, heads bent together over coffee mugs.

Benvolio, who won their earlier game of rock paper scissors over who gets to shower first, veers off towards the stairs, but Rosaline walks on and catches the end of the heated conversation going on in the kitchen.

“Really though, I think it's gone on long enough. I should really move....”

“Don't you dare!” Juliet hisses, and Livia nods enthusiastically.

Curious, Rosaline takes another step closer, and the floorboards under her feet creak.

Three heads turn towards her, three expressions going comically fast from guilty surprise to pointed nonchalance.

“Why are you threatening Mercutio?”

“What, you think I couldn't take lil' Capulet here?” Mercutio deflects.

“Not if she's got two other Capulets for back-up. So? What's going on?”

“Mercutio wants to ditch his boyfriend.”

Of all the things this conversation could have been about, Livia's explanation is not what Rosaline expected - and oddly, Mercutio looks just as surprised as she does.

“I didn't even know you had a boyfriend.”

“He's not my boyfriend. He's just some guy I've been seeing, casually.”

“For several months now!”

“Three of which I spent abroad.”

“You still texted him though.”

“What, now I'm not allowed to send the occasional sext to a fuck buddy?”

“First of all, too much information, and second, he could be more than a fuck buddy if you gave him a chance.”

Rosaline has been caught up enough on the conversation by now to remember what she came here for, and moves past the three of them to the sink to get some water – alerting them, for the first time, to her frazzled appearance.

“What happened to you?" Juliet sounds horrified.

Rosaline doesn't respond until she's gulped down most of a gigantic glass of water.

“Benvolio took me boxing.”

Stunned silence falls over the kitchen after her explanation, and Rosaline decides she finds it much more relaxing than the earlier chatter. With a grin, she takes a cookie out of the jar and takes a hearty bite out of it.

“Apparently, it's healthy to have a shared hobby as a couple.”

"But you're not a couple." Mercutio starts, as if there was any need to remind her of that. Juliet gives him a cuff on the thigh which she apparently thinks Rosaline doesn't notice.

"No," Rosaline says and saunters past them to the door, "but sometimes a girl just needs to punch someone."

"Please tell me Ben still has all his teeth?", Mercutio calls after her.

Rosaline only laughs and begins making her way upstairs. Only when she's reached the top of the stairs does she turn around to call down:

"Don't worry, he's still pretty enough."

She quickly grabs a few fresh clothes from the bedroom, and by the time she's done, the bathroom door opens.

"Who's pretty?" Benvolio asks, emerging from the bathroom with a towel slung around his hips.

Rosaline feels the sudden strong desire for another big glass of water.

"No one."

"That's harsh." Benvolio pushes past her into the bedroom, stopping to quickly tug at one of the stray curls framing her face. "Don't sell yourself short, Capulet," he grins teasingly, "you're plenty pretty."

There might still be one good punch left in her, Rosaline thinks… but Benvolio is already moving on to the closet, his hands going to the edge of his towel, and she decides a quick retreat to the bathroom is in order.

Her initial plan of a leisurely bath gets scrapped in favor of a very cold shower, because people who lust after the one man they definitely should not get any more entangled with don't deserve such luxuries.

Rosaline grits her teeth and lets the icy water pummel her instead, leaning her head back against the tiles once the first shock of it has worn off.

She _definitely_ needs to return to that gym and punch a few more things.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Rosaline calls Isabella as soon as everyone has cleared out - and then realises the moment Isabella picks up that she actually hasn't spoken to her friend in a while, which makes it a little shitty to call and ask for a favor now. But despite Rosaline's guilty unease, Isabella sounds happy to hear from her, and jumps right into a round of catching-up. Rosaline is glad to learn that her friend is doing great: she and Helena are considering getting a dog, and a promotion at the firm seems imminent.

"What about you?" Isabella asks.

Rosaline gives her a quick overview, mentioning their trip to the seaside and that she's resumed work on her thesis. (As expected, Isabella is thrilled.) And then, somehow, it slips out:

“Escalus was here the other day.” Perhaps Rosaline meant it as an explanation of what made her suddenly think of Isabella, perhaps it's a leftover instinct from the time Escalus was the most important thing connecting them. Either way, Isabella immediately latches on to the subject.

“He was? What did he want?”

“He wanted to ask if I was doing okay. Apparently, he's worried about me, what with getting married without informing him first.” She can't quite keep a hint of disdain out of her voice, and Isabella groans.

“Ugh, I should have known he was going to do something like that.”

“You couldn't have known.”

“I could have seen it coming, after he called me and said that he'd run into you and your husband. He wanted to know if it's true that you're married – which, why would you _lie_ about that?”

Rosaline bites the inside of her cheek.

“So I told him what I know, and, well, I also said that I was surprised because it was all so sudden... I'm sorry. I guess he interpreted that as me having doubts about the whole thing.”

Well, that would explain the encounter, Rosaline thinks - but then, Benvolio's explanation still seems very plausible: that Escalus was simply jealous and annoyed at her moving on.

"I really am sorry for causing this. It must have been awkward."

"It was a little, yeah. But honestly, it's not your fault. No matter what you said, he was the one who decided to come by."

"Benvolio must have been thrilled," Isabella speculates.

"Eh, he's not that easy to rattle."

She thinks that's true, because, well, why should Benvolio care? Still, there was a moment where anger was clearly visible on his face, and she guesses anyone watching and not knowing about their particular situation would have interpreted it as jealousy. Rosaline herself is going to chalk it up to friendly protectiveness.

"If you say so," Isabella seems unconvinced.

"In any case, that's not why I called you…"

Rosaline lays out the story she cooked up with Benvolio earlier about what exactly they need Isabella's help for. They decided to stick as close as possible to the excuse they're already using - that Benvolio is preparing a lecture series and needs some help - so as not to get tangled up in their own lies.

Isabella is silent for a moment after she finishes, before she finally says:

"That sounds like something I could help you with, sure. And as luck would have it, our evening plans just got cancelled. I could come over tonight, if it suits you."

"It does!" Nervousness gives way to relief. "You're a lifesaver, Isabella, really."

Isabella promises to come by for dinner, and Rosaline and Benvolio hasten to plan how much exactly to reveal to Isabella so as not to make her suspicious. For now, they've decided, it's best if as few people as possible know what exactly they're planning.

They have just enough time to prepare a quick pasta dish before the doorbell rings to announce Isabella's arrival.

Over dinner, Benvolio does a quick recap of their cover story, claiming that he's been charged with presenting highlights from the company history and they just want to make sure that none of his choices could cause any legal problems when made public.

It's not a particularly strong cover perhaps, but Rosaline thinks Isabella might just buy it - and for a moment after they've finished explaining, it looks like she's right.

“Alright, I'm going to help you.”

Rosaline turns to Benvolio to shoot him a triumphant look – only to find that she was too hasty.

“But only if you tell me what's really going on here.”

“What?” Rosaline scrambles to maintain an innocent expression, even though she knows Isabella is going to see straight through it. “I don't know what... there's nothing going on here.”

“Oh really? Then why are you asking for my help in figuring out whether or not dear Mister Montague has skeletons in the closet? And don't even try and feed me that bullshit about a lecture series again,” she adds quickly when Rosaline opens her mouth to try and defend their secret.

"So,” Isabella smiles, innocence painted over the distinct look of a predator smelling blood, “I am going to help you, but only if you tell me everything.”

“Why?” Benvolio blurts out and, well, he has a point: Rosaline can't really imagine Isabella wanting to hurt them, but she also can't quite imagine why she would want all of that information unless she planned to do something with it.

“Because I like knowing what's going on.”

Rosaline tries a different tactic.

“Trust me, in this case it's best if you know as little as possible. For you and for Helena.”

That was the wrong strategy: Any hint of amusement drops off Isabella's face immediately.

"What does this have to do with Helena? What exactly are you planning?"

Next to her, Benvolio tenses, perhaps ready to end the conversation. But that won't help, Rosaline knows - Isabella has caught on that there's something going on, and she's not going to just let it go now. At this point, not telling her would be more dangerous than telling her.

"We're going to make some changes at _Montague & Sons_. And since Helena works for Benvolio's uncle, it really would be best if she had nothing to do with this."

"'Some changes'?" Isabella repeats skeptically and then, eyes widening in understanding: "You're planning a coup!"

"We're simply getting Benvolio what he deserves."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning his uncle has somehow managed to concentrate all the power on himself and Benvolio doesn't have a say in anything - even though, technically, he should own half the company. That can't be right, can it?"

Isabella doesn't reply right away, clearly considering the issue. She looks at Benvolio, studies him as if trying to take his measure. And then her eyes fall on the files spread out on the table, and Rosaline knows she's hooked. It's too good a mystery, too great a challenge for Isabella to say no to.

"You're right - that is weird." Setting aside her empty plate, she takes an elegant, leather-bound notebook and silver pen out of her purse. "Alright, tell me what you've got so far."

***

 

Isabella leaves long after midnight, with a bag full of copied files and a promise to get back to them as soon as she's found something.

Until then, they can't do anything but wait, and judging by how anxious and impatient Rosaline feels about that, she guesses Benvolio is not doing any better. At least they've got plenty of work to do, Rosaline with her reseach and Benvolio with actualy preparing that lecture series that hasn't been more than a convenient excuse so far.

They fall into a routine, only broken by the occasional nightcap with Mercutio or visit by Livia, Juliet and Romeo. The one exception to their quiet life is the evening they're invited by Rosaline's old professor, the one Benvolio charmed with his impromptu art criticisms at a recent fundraiser.

It occurs to her as she's getting ready that this is the first social occasion they're attending of their own initiative, without Damiano hovering around to make sure they're behaving, and Rosaline realises with a start that she's actually looking forward to it.

And the evening does turn out to be fun; a relatively small dinner with an eclectic group of interesting guests. Seated to Rosaline's right is another art history professor from a University a few states away, and soon she's completely immersed in conversation. The woman, it turns out, is in the process of building up a new interdisciplinary research center with a focus on Renaissance art, and Rosaline, immediately intrigued, mentions that that's the same approach she's taking in her dissertation. The woman in turn seems very interested in that, and soon everyone around them is forgotten.

She only even remembers there are other people around when Benvolio lays his arm on the back of her chair and his hand brushes her shoulder. Looking back at him, Rosaline half expects to be chided for rudely focusing all of her attention on just one guest. But Benvolio only smiles and lets her return to her conversation, and no one around the table seems to mind either. Relieved, Rosaline continues to ignore her manners and keep talking Renaissance research with her new friend and having more fun than she's ever had on one of these occasions.

And as if to crown this already amazing evening, when they get ready to leave, the professor accompanies them to the door and says:

"You know, we're looking for an assistant researcher right now. From what I've heard about your thesis work, you sound like a perfect fit. You should apply."

Stunned at this suggestion, Rosaline can only nod dumbly, but Benvolio, standing next to her with their coats, gently prods her with his elbow, and the momentary paralysis lifts enough for her to come up with a reply.

"I definitely will - your project sounds fascinating."

There's a bit more chitchat and shaking of hands, then Benvolio gently steers her out the door and down the stairs.

They're not far from their own house, so they've decided to walk - and as soon as the door has closed behind them and they're out of earshot, Benvolio bursts out:

"Damn Capulet, you must have really impressed her."

"You think?"

"Are you kidding me? She just offered you a job."

"She didn't _offer_ me a job. She _told_ me about a job."

"Trust me, when the boss herself tells you to apply, that means she's offering. Whatever you told her, it must have been brilliant."

Rosaline smiles bashfully, warmth spreading inside her. Somehow, the simple compliment is easier to process than the fact that a door may have just opened up for her in the most wondrous way.

"What _did_ you tell her?"

"Nothing in particular, just stuff about my thesis. She just got a grant for a new research center on Renaissance art and thinking and told me what kinds of projects they're planning." It's finally beginning to sink in what happened, and Rosaline is starting to feel giddy. "It really would be a perfect fit."

She feels her little smile spread and deepen on her face until it's turned into a face-splitting grin, and Benvolio returns it easily, playfully bumping her with his elbow as they walk.

"Look at you, getting offered jobs at dinner parties! Someone's moving up in the world."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Rosaline cautions, ever sensible – and then, as his comment sinks in, something horrible occurs to her. " _Montague & Sons_ aren't donating to her university, are you?"

"Which university is it?"

She tells him the name, watches anxiously as he seems to be thinking.

"Not as far as I know. Why?" But he understands her fear immediately after. "You think she was fishing for donations?" He shakes his head, dismissing the notion immediately. "I don't think she was. She didn't seem the type. And I really don't think I've ever seen her university pop up in any of our records."

He stops walking to turn to her, pulling her to a stop by her elbow.

"Don't drive yourself crazy over this; you got her attention on your own merit. She's not after money, she's after what's in _here_." He lifts a hand to tap his finger against her temple, and the knot in Rosaline's stomach loosens a little.

"Let's hope you're right."

"I am right. So promise me you'll apply."

"Of course I'll apply."

"Good." With that topic apparently settled, Benvolio resumes walking, and Rosaline falls into step. It's only a short walk left to their house, and they pass it in silence until they're by the door.

"I could help you, if you want. My uncle's started passing on personnel decisions to me lately, so I've looked at a lot of résumés. I mean," he lowers his head as he unlocks the door, but she thinks he looks a little flustered, "the culture is probably a little different in academia, but I still know a bit about making an impression."

The door opens and he heads inside the house, where darkness and quiet indicate that Mercutio is out. It's been getting quite late without Rosaline noticing, so now she heads upstairs and straight to the bathroom. Benvolio follows, and Rosaline realises she's not quite done with the topic.

While Benvolio sits on the bed to take off his dress shoes, Rosaline starts taking off her make-up, while calling over:

"So, what would you recommend for making a good impression?"

The fact that she asks this without a hint of sarcasm speaks to just how much her opinion of him has changed.

Benvolio comes over not a minute later, leaning against the doorframe in socks and with his sleeves rolled up, taking off his tie as he begins to explain.

"Well, first of all, you need to come across as confident in your abilities…"

Rosaline listens as she continues her evening routine, gently washing her face with the expensive soap that makes her skin divinely soft. Benvolio watches curiously while he keeps talking, and Rosaline tries to make mental notes of everything he advises.

"We could also go over your CV together, once you've updated it."

With this offer, he concludes the brief lesson, stepping over to his sink and picking up his toothbrush just as she's done moisturizing.

"That would be great, thank you!"

Rosaline follows his example, picking up her toothbrush and holding it out for him to squeeze some toothpaste onto while the open tube is still in his hand.

It is at this moment that someone clears their throat behind them, and Rosaline almost drops her toothbrush in fright.

“Well, isn't this cozy.”

Mercutio is standing on the landing outside, the broadest, smuggest grin on his face as he watches them, and Rosaline suddenly feels like she's been caught red-handed in the middle of some debauched act, rather than about to brush her teeth.

“You know, if I didn't know better I would indeed believe that you're the oldest of old married couples.”

Since Benvolio turned around at the sound of his friend's voice, Rosaline can only see the back of his head. But judging by the brilliant red of the tips of his ears, she's guessing he's at least a little bit embarrassed too.

Mercutio at least is clearly revelling in their embarrassment, his grin turning, if possible, even broader.

“Don't let me disturb this domestic scene,” he comments in a tone that can only be described as “sassy”, before he winks and disappears into his room (which Rosaline is pretty sure she can no longer call her own, seeing as he has by now lived in there longer than she has).

“Night, Mom and Dad!", Mercutio calls out just before the door closes after him, and Rosaline feels her face heat up at the insinuation even though she's heard it before from Juliet: that she and Benvolio are getting _awfully_ comfortable in their role as a married couple and that somehow, that means there must be more to their relationship than they claim.

Which is ridiculous, of course.

Rosaline turns back towards the mirror, resolutely avoiding Benvolio's eyes as she gives her teeth what has to be the most thorough cleaning they've ever experienced outside a dental office.

They both finish up in awkward silence, bump into each other in the doorframe on their way to the bedroom, and then get embroiled in an even more awkward little debate over who gets to change first that only ends when Benvolio realises that he sleeps in a shirt and his boxers anyway, and retreats outside to the landing to change into said shirt.

Rosaline is in the process of hanging up her pants and putting her silk blouse away to bring it to the dry-cleaner's when she hears voices outside the door, whispering urgently. She can only assume that Benvolio is telling Mercutio what he thinks about his comment, which of course raises the question: What _does_ he think about it? He was clearly mortified, but was it for the same reason she was?

Carefully, Rosaline leans closer to the door, holding her breath as she listens. But there's no need for such stealth, because the conversation seems to be drawing to a close, and Benvolio is raising his voice.

“Well, whatever you're playing at, just cut it the fuck out, alright? This is hard enough as it is."

Rosaline draws back just in time to avoid being hit by the door when Benvolio throws it open abruptly, but she's pretty sure he'll still realise that she was listening – unless, her panicking brain suggests, unless she puts herself in a position that makes it clear she could not have heard him if she tried.

Before she has time to decide if the idea is really worth pursuing, Rosaline has pulled her camisole over her head as if she had just been in the process of taking it off. It gets stuck on her up-do and does the job of covering her ears alright, but it also leaves her sitting before Benvolio in nothing but her bra and panties. She just avoided an awkward situation by creating a new, even more awkward one.

“Oh, _fuck_! Sorry.”

The door slams shut again while Rosaline disentangles her hair from her shirt, then she hastens to take off her bra and slip into her pyjamas before any more accidental flashing can occur.

It's only when she's lying in bed with the lights out and her pyjama top buttoned up to the top that Rosaline calls out:

“You can come in, I'm decent again.”

Benvolio returns, still looking a little flushed, and slips into bed beside her, quiet save for a muttered “Sorry about that.”

“Don't worry,” Rosaline replies, painfully aware of how strained she sounds. How the hell did they go from having a lovely evening and making plans for her job application to _this_?

She wants to say it's all Mercutio's fault, but she knows that wouldn't be entirely honest. After all, if she hadn't somehow managed to become ridiculously attracted to her husband – _accidental_ husband, she reminds herself – Mercutio's earlier remark would have been nothing but a joke they could all chuckle at and then immediately forget about.

“Night, Capulet,” Benvolio says and turns away, and Rosaline follows his example.

“Night, Montague.”

Staring at the bare wall by her side of the bed, Rosaline forces herself to stop going over the little inconveniences of the evening and focus on the big new development instead: She got handed a chance, a _real_ chance, at returning to her field without having to ask Escalus for help.

 _That_ is what she should focus on, and not whatever Mercutio thinks is going on with her and Benvolio. Because really, what _is_ so bad about them being comfortable around each other? They've been living together for _months_ , does Mercutio expect them to act like they still hate each other?

They're friends now, and that is a good thing. Anything else is secondary.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only a tiny little chapter, but if I had not separated it, the next one would turn into a monster.   
> I have no idea if the legal/business details check out, so please don't look at them too closely. Thank you and enjoy.

Even with the bulk of their research into _Montague_ _&_ _Sons_ passed on to Isabella, things don't really get much quieter. Rosaline gets right to work on her application, writing a cover letter that makes reference to her meeting with the head of the new research center without sounding like she thinks she's already got the job, updating her CV and putting the finishing touches on her thesis abstract.

Benvolio, meanwhile, is still catching up with preparing the lecture he only pretended to be doing before, on top of his usual insane workload of course, and for a few days it seems like he's slipping right back into his old routine, the one that almost broke him on the night of Romeo's reading. Every evening Rosaline sees him come home later and later, pale and exhausted, until she's tempted to play the wife card again, call his office and pretend he has to leave early for some important social obligation. But they can't afford to draw Damiano's attention right now, so Rosaline grits her teeth and says nothing.

Still, when Benvolio comes home on a rainy Friday evening after a week that's felt longer than any before and plops down on the sofa, feet dangling over the edge and head cushioned on her lap, she can't get herself to remember her resolutions about keeping her distance. She lets him stay and, softened as always by his vulnerability, gently runs her fingers through his hair.

His eyes slide shut on an exhausted groan, and Rosaline almost pulls her hand back again, suddenly afraid of how easy the intimate gesture came to her, how easily he accepted it. But then, wouldn't that just confirm that she's somehow doing something she shouldn't be?

"Long day?", she asks instead, not because she doesn't already know it was, but because she's hoping conversation is going to help her focus on something other than how close he is. His head isn't technically in her lap, resting at about the middle of her thigh instead, but it's still very much _there_ , and she can feel him breathe in and out, breaths getting deeper as she continues her soothing movements. Support, she reminds herself, friendship and support and comfort, that's what this is about and nothing else.

"One meeting after another, and none of them at all productive." He opens his eyes again, fixes them on her. "How about you?"

"I've finished my application. I'm going to proofread it tomorrow and then send it off."

"Want me to look it over as well?"

"Only if you're not too tired."

"I can manage that much," he says and tries to sit up, only to fall back again halfway through. "Just give me five more minutes, okay?"

In the end, it takes a little more than that. Since Benvolio doesn't seem in the mood to talk, Rosaline doesn't ask any further questions but returns her attention to her book, absentmindedly continuing to run her hands through his hair, the texture pleasingly soft against her skin. She knows he uses some kind of hair product to tame his usually unruly waves in the morning, but by now it has all worn off, indicating that his boring meetings caused a lot of exasperated hair-pulling.

Well, he can relax now, Rosaline thinks and decides not to wake him up when his eyes shut again and his face goes slack as he dozes off. She'll let him have this moment, the living-room quiet save for the patter of rain against the windows and the rustle when she turns another page in her book. The ring of warm, yellow light cast by the old-fashioned floor lamp Rosaline discovered at a flea market provides the only illumination in the room, turning the couch into a peaceful little island just for the two of them, and with their phones turned on silent and the door locked, it really does feel like the rest of the world is far away for now.

And so what if she's spoiling herself too by deciding to remain like this for a little longer? It's not like this is going to lead to another Vegas incident - her heart is perfectly safe here.

When she looks down at Benvolio a few minutes later, her chest aching with affection, she knows it's a lie.

***

 

Things progress, even though for a while it doesn't really feel like it. They don't hear from Isabella much except when she asks for some more files, as well as a copy of the company by-laws and records of all the changes that have been made to it.

Rosaline sends off her application after making a few changes suggested by Benvolio, and then doesn't quite manage to return to her research without nervously wondering when she'll hear back about the researcher position.

Luckily, she doesn't really get much time to agonize over it, because Juliet and Romeo's wedding is coming up soon and last-minute preparations are piling up.

That of course means a lot of time spent with her aunt, who seems convinced that even though she technically fulfilled her duty to the family by marrying rich, Rosaline still manages to fail at plenty of other things.

Now Giuliana has decided that her niece should be pregnant by now, and the fact that she isn't is apparently proof that her marriage is falling apart because Rosaline is failing to satisfy her husband and give him a child, nevermind the fact that Benvolio himself told everyone that they don't have any plans to have children yet. But when Rosaline reminds her of that, her aunt only scoffs.

"Men never have _plans_ to have kids when they're at that age. And then one day they suddenly decide that they do want to procreate, except then your body isn't quite up to the task anymore and you get traded in for a younger model. Trust me, if you want to keep your Montague, you better get to work while all your eggs are still fresh."

"Mom!" Juliet chides gently, emerging from a dressing-room to show off another gown for the rehearsal dinner which her mother will no doubt find fault with. "Can you please chill? It's none of your business when Rose and Ben decide to have children!"

Rosaline glares at her cousin, who knows very well that their "marriage" is far from producing offspring. She could have at least had the decency of framing the matter of their highly hypothetical children as a question of "if" rather than "when". 

"The only thing that matters is that when they do, I get to be a Godmother."

Juliet winks at Rosaline and prances back into the dressing-room, having apparently decided against the dress all while being a little shit - a true multi-tasker, her little cousin.

Two hours and several murderous thoughts later (because of course Giuliana did not drop the issue of Rosaline's eggs and just resorted to only bringing it up when Juliet was out of earshot), Rosaline finally returns home, ready for a long bath and a big glass of wine.

Instead, she finds Isabella and Benvolio sitting in the living-room, bent over a stack of papers.

Both look up when she steps closer on creaking floorboards, and she doesn't even have to ask before Benvolio says:

"We've found something."

He looks grim as he says it, and Rosaline feels a shiver run down her spine. Rosaline hastens to sit down on the sofa next to Benvolio, turning towards Isabella in the armchair to let her explain.

"Now, everything pertaining to Damiano's shares checks out, and even the ones he bought in addition to his initial ones were all obtained perfectly legally. Interestingly, he doesn't even hold that many shares - he had to sell a chunk of them to recover when the real estate bubble burst. He managed to buy many of them back, but he definitely did not have a majority anymore, and especially not over Benvolio's shares. Nonetheless, his hold over the company seems to have grown instead of dwindled after that."

She pulls a stack of printed pages towards her and flips through it.

"And here's how he achieved that:", she points at a paragraph on the page. "He changed the company by-laws in his favour, making it so that even decisions made by a someone holding more than 30% of the shares, which means by himself or Benvolio, needed to be backed by a majority vote from the board. Obviously, back then Benvolio wasn't working at the company and thus could not expect any such support from the board - a control organ Damiano has spent years staffing only with friends and people who have no choice but to support him."

Rosaline thinks she's following, and frankly, it all makes sense with what she's seen of Damiano so far. What she doesn't know is how that helps them - but that's what Isabella is getting to now.

"Now, ordinarily, this would not be illegal. Shady, yes, and morally questionable considering he actively worked to weaken his own nephew's position. But," Isabella smiles, sharp and shark-like, "here's where he made a mistake, for whatever reason: He got impatient, proposed the change just a few weeks before Benvolio turned 18 and thus legally able to enact his right to vote on board decisions. And that is definitely illegal."

She pauses to let Benvolio sum up the essence of her explanation:

"We've got him, Rose."

He's smiling, excitement and trepidation and determination and a hint of fear all shining brightly from his eyes, and Rosaline only notices belatedly that he used her nickname for the first time.

Isabella takes over once more.

"At the very least, you have some leverage over him. How you want to use that leverage, that's for you to decide."

"For Benvolio, really." Rosaline looks at him, smiles encouragingly.

"I think I just… want him to stop having such power over me. To no longer be able to dictate what I work on and how I shape my life. But I've been thinking, and I'd also like us to strengthen our residential construction sector. To build houses for people again, and not just for corporations."

"So, you want to secure your position in the firm as well as be more involved in strategic decisions."

Benvolio nods.

"In that case, I'd suggest forcing him to change the by-laws again, put pressure on his cronies to support the change. Telling him what we know and what we could do with that should do the trick."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we'll sue."

Isabella seems a little too excited by the prospect, but for now, Rosaline doesn't comment.

"I could draw up a draft for the new company by-laws, and go with you when you tell him to make sure he signs everything properly."

"Why? I mean, no offense, I really appreciate what you're doing to help us and I know you're Rosaline's friend but…"

"Let me put it this way: it seems you'll be calling some more shots at _Montague_   _&_ _Sons_ in the future. I just want you to remember that you got excellent legal advice from me when, say, your company has some business to take to a law firm."

Benvolio grins.

"I see. In that case though, your plan had better work."

"Oh, it's gonna work. One way or the other."

And that's that - they have their angle, they have a plan, and one phone call to Damiano's secretary later, they have an appointment two days from now.

There's no turning back.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, a new chapter got finished! Again, please don't look too closely at the legal and business aspects of the whole Damiano-sideplot - but I have a feeling you'll have other things to focus on.

The next evening Rosaline makes Spaghetti Bolognese, because Benvolio's big confrontation is coming up tomorrow and it's her family's go-to comfort food. Benvolio returns a little earlier than the past few days, which Rosaline approves of because it means he'll get a good night's sleep, and God knows he'll need to be on top of his game tomorrow. 

He comes into the kitchen when she's just started on the sauce, and Rosaline immediately blurts out the thing that occurred to her earlier.

"I think you should tell Romeo, about what we're planning."

Rosaline says it offhandedly, eyes on the chopped carrots and onions sautéing on the stove, not wanting it to sound like a big deal. 

"It's better than if he finds out about it from his father. Who knows what Damiano's going to tell him." 

Benvolio listens to her explanation intently.

"Good idea. I should let him know that I don't expect him to pick a side. This doesn't have to concern him." 

That's not quite where Rosaline was going with this advice: she's hoping Romeo will be supportive like he was determined to be after their falling-out, and thus alleviate some of Benvolio's fears about being left alone if he stands up to his uncle.

"It does though. And if you really expect him to stay out of it, or to pick his father over you in this, I think you're not giving him enough credit." She adds minced meat to the pan before her, then turns to look at Benvolio, hoping her words will really sink in. "He cares about you, Benvolio. He's going to be on your side." 

Benvolio nods, but Rosaline can tell he's not entirely convinced. He retreats to the living-room to make the phone call anyway, and Rosaline returns her attention to their dinner. 

When he returns some time later, the food is almost ready, and Benvolio is smiling broadly. 

"How did it go?" 

"He said, and I quote, "if he doesn't go along with your plans, tell my Dad he's not invited to the wedding."" 

Rosaline stifles the urge to say 'I told you so', instead turning back to the stove to stir the sauce before taking it off the heat - although not without feeling a little smile tugging at her lips. 

"You can say it, if you want to," Benvolio offers graciously, stepping up next to her to take the pasta off the stove and pour out the water.

"I have no idea what you mean." 

"You were right about Romeo, don't you want to gloat about that?"

Ignoring his teasing, Rosaline takes a bowl out of the kitchen cabinet and pours the sauce into it. 

"I don't _gloat_ ," she says haughtily, and Benvolio laughs.

"Of course you don't." Benvolio takes the sieve full of pasta and carries it over to the dining table, but out of the corner of her eye she can see him smile. "But to spare you the effort, I'm going to say it myself: You're a very wise woman." 

"Who gives great advice," Rosaline suggests, and Benvolio plays along and repeats:

"Who gives great advice." 

"And should be revered and listened to at all times."

Benvolio laughs. "Don't push it, Capulet." 

Rosaline sticks out her tongue, then she starts piling pasta and sauce on their plates while Benvolio pours them each a glass of wine. Silence falls over the kitchen as they begin to eat, until Benvolio speaks up again some time later. 

"I was thinking - if it's not too much trouble, would you mind coming along tomorrow? You've been so involved in this whole thing, it would feel weird not to have you there."

For a moment, Rosaline is stunned. He wants _her_ there? Sure, she helped a little, but mainly, she just gave him the push he needed. 

"What about your uncle? Won't it make him more pissed if I'm there?"

"I don't give a _fuck_ what my uncle thinks about it!", Benvolio spits out, then he seems to startle at his own harsh tone and dials it down again. "I wouldn't be doing this without you in the first place. I need you there."

Rosaline tries not to let it get to her, she really does, but the plea in his voice, the way he looks at her imploringly, nonetheless make her throat feel tight.

"Sure, I'll be there." She keeps her voice light, not wanting to make this feel even more fateful than it already is. "I mean, part-time barista-ing is keeping me pretty busy, but I should be able to squeeze you in." 

Benvolio chuckles and Rosaline relaxes a little. But the rest of the evening is still a quiet one, with Benvolio going over Isabella's notes again and again until Rosaline eventually convinces him it might be more helpful to just take a relaxing bath and go to bed early. 

The next morning, the big day dawns with an overcast sky and a quietly tense mood. Rosaline tries to lighten the tension a little, but it doesn't really seem to catch on with Benvolio, and she can't blame him. 

Their appointment is in the early afternoon, so Benvolio still has a few regular morning meetings to sit through beforehand, and Rosaline and Isabella will join him later. 

Rosaline was determined not to make a big deal of the fact that today will make or break the work they've been doing for the past weeks, not to mention it will either free Benvolio from his uncle's grip or poison their relationship for good. 

Still, she when she watches him slip on his jacket in the hallway and nervously check his reflection in the mirror, Rosaline can't help herself. 

She joins him in the hallway, picking up his laptop-bag where it fell over and handing it to him. 

"Promise me you'll at least try not to think about it all morning, alright? Otherwise I'll have to bombard you with memes and lame punny jokes to keep you distracted." 

Benvolio laughs, but the sound is muted, and his face still looks tight. 

She takes another step closer, reaching out to straighten his tie which he knocked askew while putting on his jacket. Halfway through the motion she realises how intimate it is - a wifely gesture fresh out of a cheesy commercial. But a caring one too, and if there's one thing Rosaline wants Benvolio to be sure of today is that he has people who care about him. So she finishes the gesture, then looks at him with a reassuring smile. 

"You will crush it today. I know you will."

She steps back, slower than she stepped towards him, as if he had suddenly developed some sort of magnetic field that pulled her towards him.

"Now stop worrying and get to work."

This time, when Benvolio continues towards the door his steps seem a little lighter.

She sticks to her promise of sending him funny memes anyway, just to make sure he has something to smile about, and when she gets to Montague Tower a few hours later, he is.

"Really, Capulet?", he asks when she steps into his office half an hour before their scheduled appointment, "cat memes?"

She laughs at his incredulous tone and sets down the bag of sandwiches she brought, because she's sure he hasn't eaten yet. He tucks in silently, immediately confirming her suspicion, and Rosaline doesn't feel much like talking either, now nervous herself.

Soon, she tells herself. Soon this will all be over.

***

 

Damiano is late. 

Rosaline has no doubt it's one of those ridiculous power moves, a reminder that he's the most important person in this meeting and they should all be grateful he's gracing them with his presence at all, but all it does is put Rosaline even more on edge. 

Luckily, Isabella takes charge immediately when he finally arrives, not stooping to acknowledge his half-hearted apology. 

"Well, now that you're here, let's get right to it..." Isabella begins.

"Please do." 

Isabella ignores Damiano's patronising tone.

"A few years ago, you changed the company by-laws." 

Damiano seems momentarily thrown by the topic, one he no doubt did not expect, but he remains calm.

"With the unanimous support of the board. As is my right, as this company's owner."

"Ah, yes. But not its sole owner." 

Damiano looks genuinely confused now, which makes Rosaline's dormant anger flare up again. He really seems to have forgotten that 'his' company had a co-owner, and still does. No wonder he acts like he's king of his little kingdom. 

"Benvolio was not of age when those changes were made. I was acting as his legal guardian, and in his best interest." 

"So it was in his best interest to change the by-laws specifically to require support from the board even for the biggest shareholders - support you knew you had and Benvolio did not? You deliberately made changes to diminish your nephew's acting power just before he came of age, and you made those changes in a way that, if presented in court, would seem questionable at best."

Damiano falters only for a fraction of a second, then his smooth mask slips back into place. Still, it's enough to let Rosaline know Isabella was right: they've got him, and Damiano knows it - not that he's ready to admit that yet.

"I had good reasons for that change. Benvolio is trouble, always has been. I was simply protecting the company." 

Rosaline grits her teeth, lays a calming hand on Benvolio's knee without really thinking about it and finds him tense under her hand. And it's no wonder, if this is the kind of judgment he's been putting up with for years. 

"Trouble? I haven't found any indication of the sort - no police records, nothing in his school reports, and his grades were good enough to get him into a good college. Your nephew can't have been that bad." 

Rosaline stifles a smirk. The reason Isabella found no proof of Benvolio's youthful misadventures is of course not that there weren't any, but that Damiano spent a lot of money to make everything disappear before it could cast a shadow over the family name. 

"And now," Isabella continues, "your nephew is a valued and productive member of the company, beloved and respected by co-workers, partners and clients. A married man, who will need to support a family someday. Do you really want to be the man who screwed him over?" 

Isabella lets the words sink in for a moment, lets their message unfold: not that treating his nephew this way would be bad per se, but that it would _look_ bad to outsiders.

Turning towards her purse, Isabella takes out a large envelope and sets it carefully on the table before her, as if to convey the weight of its contents without words. 

"But it doesn't have to come to that. Since you've managed to change the by-laws once before, it should be no trouble to do so again.  You might even use the opportunity to also sign a few shares over to your nephew - strengthening the next generation on their way into the future, giving your nephew a chance to prove himself: that can only mean you're a man who looks to the future, and thinks ahead." 

By now, it seems to be sinking in what they're doing, and Damiano looks around the room with a dark expression. In a reflex that is perhaps very human, if not very helpful, he turns first towards finding someone to blame for his current situation.

“I take it you're behind this?” He turns towards Rosaline, and she forces herself not to flinch under his hateful stare. “A gold-digging Capulet - I'm not surprised."

“You leave Rosaline out of this,” Benvolio growls. “This has been a long time coming. Now,” he takes the envelope, which contains the papers Isabella prepared for them, and slams it down on the table before Damiano, “there are two ways we can do this. One, you can sign this, confirming that from now on my vote holds just as much weight in board decisions as yours. Or you can refuse to do that, and we'll go public with the story of how exactly you've been running this place the past years, and I'll sue your ass off. Your choice.”

“What if I refuse to sign? Or make it public that you're blackmailing me?”

“Then people might ask what it is I'm blackmailing you _with_. And I'm sure you don't want that.”

Damiano only falters for a moment, but it's enough to let Rosaline know that Benvolio has landed a hit.

His voice switches seamlessly over from blasé and unconcerned to coldly threatening.

“I'll make your life hell for this.”

But rather than be intimidated, Benvolio only laughs at the threat, harsh and derisive.

“Oh, you mean the way you've been doing for years?” As quickly as it appears, the humor slips from his voice again. “Go on, try.” Benvolio's voice is cold and hard like the brushed steel of the conference table under her fingertips, and Rosaline suppresses a shiver. “No, you're going to be very quiet and civil about this and never speak of it in anything but the most positive terms. Otherwise you might find yourself unwelcome at your son's wedding.”

“My son would never go against me like that.”

“Are you sure you want to take that risk? Romeo's already a better man than you could ever hope to be.”

There's a moment of breathless silence while Damiano is visibly struggling to find a way out, angling for yet another threat to keep his nephew in place. Looking at Benvolio's determined expression, however, Rosaline knows that whatever the elder Montague comes up with, he will no longer be cowed. She feels a surge of pride for him, watching as he finally frees himself from his uncle's shadow.

Still, Damiano isn't giving up just yet.

“Changing the by-laws again for no reason will make our stakeholders and partners nervous. No one wants to get caught up in a power struggle. You will cause irreparable damage to your father's company if you carry on like this.”

Rosaline clenches her teeth in anger – it's obvious that Damiano's sudden mention of his brother is a blatant attempt to manipulate Benvolio.

Luckily, he doesn't fall for it.

“It's nice to know you even still remember my father. But you know what? I don't really care what this does to the company. It hasn't been my Dad's company in a long time, and frankly, the way you've been running it, I have a feeling he wouldn't want to be involved in it in any case. If it's so important to you how people react to these changes – come up with an excuse yourself. Tell them you're preparing to retire, and are slowly handing more responsibility over to me. Tell them whatever you like, I don't care. But I have a feeling once I sue you'll have an even harder time explaining yourself.”

Damiano, still infuriatingly calm, narrows his eyes, his voice growing even colder. “You're going to run this company into the ground.”

“Not if you finally accept that you have to cooperate with me."

In the silence that follows, even Rosaline's shallow breaths sound thunderously loud to her ears. Benvolio and his uncle sit across from each other, eyes locked in a way that would be funny if the situation wasn't so damn serious. Rosaline stifles a hysterical giggle.

And then, slowly, Damiano picks up the fountain pen Isabella discreetly set down before him, pulls the papers closer, and sets his signature, bold and sprawling, on the dotted line.

Rosaline slowly lets out her breath. If he had refused, she has no doubt Isabella would have made him pay for it - but she's still glad that Benvolio will be spared a long, public battle.

They haven't quite won yet, though: like an injured animal gathering its strength for one last attack, Damiano makes a show of studying his nephew from head to toe while he screws shut his pen, slowly and composedly. Then, with the air of a mere curious observer, he says:

“You really are your father's son, it seems. He never had a head for business either; wanted to go into affordable housing and family homes at a time when the money was in corporate buildings and luxury estates.” He pauses to smile his cold, smooth smile. “I guess it's a lucky coincidence that he died before he could follow through on his disastrous plans.”

Rosaline is frozen in place, stunned by the cruelty of the words.

Benvolio on the other hand jumps to his feet, with a look of rage on his face that Rosaline would never have thought him capable of in the first place. She's seen him angry before, yes, and has done her fair share to contribute to that anger, but never like this. 

A few sharp strides bring him around the table to face his uncle, and Damiano gets to his feet with a haste that tells Rosaline he too has never seen his nephew like this, and it scares him. 

Good, Rosaline thinks grimly, let him be scared. 

And for a moment, it looks like he has reason to be scared indeed: Benvolio has come close enough to make it seem like he's towering over his uncle even though the men are about the same height, his entire body is tense, and his fists are clenched as if he's getting  ready to throw a punch - and having experienced him at his boxing gym, Rosaline can only imagine being at the receiving end of that would be unpleasant indeed. 

But when Benvolio's blow finally comes, it's not a physical one after all. 

"You're a sick, sad old man. I'm just glad to know that your son will never be like you."

Then, without another word, he turns and walks away, and the tension in the room slowly dissolves. Damiano lets out a relieved breath, clearly trying not to show how rattled he is. Rosaline doesn't pay him any attention, only staying long enough to see Isabella calmly gather up the papers scattered across the table. Then she rushes out after Benvolio.

As expected, she finds him in his office, leaning heavily on his desk with his head lolling down between his shoulders. 

“Are you okay?”, she asks, then immediately feels stupid. Of course he's not okay. They got what they wanted, bent the great Damiano Montague to their will – and even then, the hateful man managed to suck the joy right out of their victory.

“I almost lost it in there,” Benvolio answers, voice hollow and head still bent as he takes deep, calming breaths. He rolled up his sleeves on the way here, and she can see the tendons in his arms straining as they prop him up. "I got _this_ close to knocking him on his ass."

Rosaline closes the door behind her and walks over until she's close enough to lay a soothing hand on his back.

“I know," Rosaline says, feels him let out a shuddering breath. "And I have to say, I for one would have enjoyed seeing your uncle get punched in the face. I definitely wanted to do the same more than a few times.”

He chuckles a little, as she had known he would because he always resorts to humor in situations like this, and her little joke offers something he can hold on to. He lifts his head, letting his gaze stray over the edge of his desk towards the window and its splendid view of the city. But in the taut muscles under her hand, Rosaline can still feel how tense he is, and the thought that he might be cheated out of his deserved triumph makes her angry once more.

“You were great today. Don't let him take that from you.”

Finally, Benvolio pushes himself upright again and turns to look at her, eyes blazing with the same adrenaline she still feels running through her veins.

For a moment, that's all he does, and the room around them goes quiet save for the low hum of the air condition, and the loud hammering of Rosaline's heart.

Then he surges forward and kisses her, pulling her close with one hand on her waist and one buried in her hair and she melts into him as if her body had been ready for this moment even as her brain is still busy catching up to it.

By the time it has she's clutching the front of his shirt and kissing him back, all the nervous tension of the last few days pouring from her just as it is from him. She imagines that she can almost taste what he's feeling now, triumph and anger and relief all swirled together and finding an outlet like this and, _God_ , does she ever not mind providing that outlet.

The hand that was stroking her hair, with surprising gentleness considering the urgency of his kiss, is now sliding down the side of her crisp blouse, leaving goosebumps in its wake until it reaches her waist too, and then he's pushing her back until she's propped against his desk. While his lips find her neck, his hands continue their trip in unison, gliding along the curve of her hips to grasp her thighs and lift her up onto his desk in one powerful motion and Rosaline gasps in surprise, heat pooling deep inside her. 

Her entire being seems to narrow down to the points where his hands are touching her, tense with strength when they lift her up and then, immediately after, gentle and reverent when they run up and down her thighs. The contrast is maddening, and she buries her hand in his hair to pull his head back up so she can kiss him again, because his lips on her neck may feel amazing but she's not done simply tasting him yet, and she has a feeling she won't be done for some time. 

She's just slung her arms around the back of his neck to pull him even closer, hips canting forward expectantly when he moves in between her legs, when someone clears their throat behind them.

They pull apart so fast Rosaline almost tumbles off the desk, and ends up teetering precariously on the edge for a moment.

“I didn't mean to disturb, but we should talk about our next steps.”

Isabella is all business as always, but there's an amused glint in her eyes, and Rosaline could swear she sees her friend's lips twitch when she slides off the desk, wobbling a little as she lands on her feet and frantically smoothing down her rumpled blouse.

Benvolio only nods and joins Isabella at the other side of the room, where she takes a seat on one of the armchairs and spreads the signed paperwork out on the low coffee table. Isabella immediately launches into a summary of their situation, and Rosaline is thankful to have something to focus on while she tries to get her thoughts back in order.

It's clear that Benvolio's kiss was a spur-of-the-moment thing, a release of the pressure that's been building up over the past weeks. But what she isnt sure of is: was he surprised by the impulse, or just as ready to go along as she was  - and if he was, what does it _mean_? 

Unfortunately, she gets pretty much left alone with her rambling thoughts, because Isabella and Benvolio are finished pretty quickly and both have other appointments right away. Rosaline isn't entirely sure if Benvolio is up to heading to the next meeting right now or if it wouldn't be better for him to take a break. But she understands the impulse to want to keep going, keep pushing, and so she doesn't say anything. Benvolio can decide for himself how much he can take.

And Rosaline, she decides, needs to think. Or, better perhaps, to speak to someone, because if she goes home right away now, she'll probably drive herself crazy. 

Luckily, Livia's shift ends half an hour later, and by the time Rosaline makes it to a coffee shop near the hospital, Livia is already there, two cups of coffee sitting on the table before her. 

"So? How did your big meeting go?" 

"What?" Rosaline realises she completely forgot that there even _was_ a big meeting today, let alone that she told Livia about it. 

"Oh, good, perfect." 

She takes a swig of coffee, which has luckily cooled down enough not to scald her mouth, and Livia watches with visible confusion.

"So now you're upset because…?"

Right. Yes, that must seem weird. 

Rosaline sets down the coffee mug. 

"Benvolio kissed me." 

Her announcement, urgent though she made it sound, doesn't get much of a reaction. 

"Did Damiano make you go to one of his social things again?" 

Of course, Rosaline realises: as a part of their little performance, kissing has by now been established as a perfectly ordinary thing for her and Benvolio to do - except this kiss was far from ordinary. 

"No, he kissed me voluntarily." Well, that just sounds weird. "I mean, in private. It wasn't for show." 

"Oh", Livia replies, and then, as the full meaning of Rosaline's statement sinks in: " _Ohhhhh_. Okay, tell me everything." 

She does, as much as there is _to_ tell - after all, it really wasn't that big a deal.

"I mean, he was riled up, and he's been living with all that tension, we both have, really... it had to go _somewhere_." 

"Riiight." 

That's all Livia says, then she picks up her phone and starts typing. 

"Ummmm… _hello_?" 

"I'm telling Juliet to get here. Clearly, this is a two-person job." 

Quick as a flash, Rosaline has snatched her phone. 

"Don't." 

"Why? We're going to tell her anyway, right?" 

"Sure, at some point." Rosaline sounds unconvincing even to her own ears.

"You don't want to tell her." 

"I already know what she's going to say: She's going to tell me to go for it. And I don't think I should."

"Why the hell not? You do remember you're already married to him, right?" 

"Of course. But that's all for show. It's not meant to last forever; in fact, it probably doesn't have to last much longer at all. I don't want to make things complicated now when we're soon getting a divorce anyway." 

"Well, you don't have to do that. Or, you could get the divorce if you don't want it to be quite so official but then try dating anyway. You can do whatever you want!" 

"Oh, and you know precisely what I want," Rosaline snaps, then immediately feels bad about it. "Sorry."

Luckily, Livia is not offended by her tone.

"You're scared," she observes calmly.

"After Escalus, do you blame me?" 

"He's not Escalus though." 

"No, he's not. But we could still hurt each other." 

"Or you could be happy."

"Yes." Just admitting that there's a possibility feels terrifying, because it stirs a hope within her that can only end in misery. 

Livia remains silent, giving her space to say more. 

"I mean, I don't even know if he would want us to be _more_. Maybe he's just looking for a casual thing."

"A casual marriage, you mean?" 

"Well, now you make it sound stupid." 

"Because it _is_ stupid." Livia sighs. "Look, I don't know Ben very well. But the way he looks at you doesn't seem very casual. And Mercutio agrees with me on that."

"Oh, you've talked to Mercutio about it too?" 

"We just want you guys to be happy." 

"Well, _I_ just want us to not completely fuck things up." 

"Come on, Rose…" 

But whatever Livia wants to say, Rosaline can't bear to hear it. Her sister may be optimistic about this whole thing, but her freshly repaired heart is way too fragile to support any such risks. 

"Can we just drop it please?"

"You're the one who called me to talk about it. Clearly, that's something you need."

"Well, I changed my mind - I don't want to talk about it anymore, and I don't need to do anything." 

"You can't avoid the topic forever." 

"Watch me,"  Rosaline growls, but Livia only rolls her eyes.

"Honestly, sometimes I think you're the younger sister here."

Rosaline doesn't know what to say to that. She's probably just overreacting, panicking about the whole Benvolio situation when maybe there's nothing much behind it at all. (No matter what her sister and Mercutio seem to believe.) 

But still, asking Benvolio if he can see them going somewhere is a risk - and right now, she's not sure her heart is ready to handle that risk.

Not when it comes to him. 

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, I've been super busy lately and didn't get around to writing much, but I have finally managed to cobble together a chapter. Just a heads up about a few things beforehand:  
> 1) It got looooong. Which means there's a chance of super sloppy editing bc I need to go to bed NOW. But it is finished, and that's all that matters.  
> 2) Rosaline is seriously emotionally compromised at this point. Like, just angsting all over the place and making panicked decisions.  
> 3) So, I don't want to give anything away, but in case this fic ever gets to earn its rating, I have to warn you all: I suck at writing sex scenes, so I always try to skirt around the explicit parts. In my defense, this is rated M and not E... So, beware of the purple prose.  
> Also, big shout-out to @carrieeve, who listened to my confused ramblings about all my problems with this chapter and encouraged me to finish it anyway.

Despite her earlier claim that she's finished talking about the issue, Rosaline almost does end up discussing her feelings with Benvolio, who comes home looking tired but determined when he joins her in the kitchen. Then his determination falters a little, and there's a long pause before he rallies himself once more.

"About what happened earlier…", Benvolio begins, and Rosaline's heart stumbles. So maybe not addressing the topic at all was never a very good plan – but she still failed to make a better one, let alone figure out what to say – or decide if she's at all ready for what _he's_ going to say.

When her phone buzzes with a message, it's just the thing to distract her for a moment, long enough to try and calm her racing heart.

At least, that's the plan - but the message preview flashing up on her screen has the opposite effect:

_**When can you start?** _

It's from the professor she applied for a job with, and even though the meaning seems pretty straightforward, Rosaline does not allow herself to triumph just yet. She opens the e-mail with shaking hands – and skimming over it, every detail only confirms her first assumption.

"Rosaline?" Benvolio sounds worried. "What is it?"

"I've got the job."

She looks up in time just to see his expression clear, worry easily replaced by joy.

"At the research center?"

"Yes!" And then, as it finally sinks in: "They want me to start as soon as possible!"

There's a flash of hesitation on Benvolio's face, lingering no longer than a fraction of a second, then he breaks out in a broad smile.

"That's awesome!"

It really is, Rosaline thinks as it slowly sinks in: She's got a job again, doing what she loves at a place where she actually has a future. With a limited contract for one year, for now, but that's pretty much standard in academia anyway, and the e-mail did say something about the possibility of a renewed contract.

"What are you waiting for?" Benvolio's voice cuts through the fog in her head, hands gripping her arms as if to guide her back to reality. "Tell them you're taking it!"

Right. That's definitely what she should do first.

Rosaline takes her phone to the living-room and calls her new boss to thank her for the opportunity.

When she returns to the kitchen, still a little dazed, Benvolio is looking at her expectantly.

"I'm starting in three weeks," she says without needing to be asked.

"Right after the wedding?"

Rosaline nods, slowly lets the information sink in that her starting date does pretty much coincide with Juliet and Romeo's big wedding. That there _is_ a starting date in the first place.

Three weeks, then she's moving to another city hours away, to start over once again.

The thought is so surreal that it takes her a moment to process it - and then she makes the mistake of looking up from her phone, where she had been staring at the e-mail as if it was in danger of disappearing, and around Benvolio's cozy kitchen, and it hits her: Moving to her new workplace means moving out of this house. Means going from seeing Benvolio every day to... what? The occasional phone call? Text? And what will they talk about, when there's no everyday married life to plan, not even a pretend one? Because this she is pretty sure of: with Damiano hopefully put in his place and her finding a new income and place to live, there's no reason to keep up the facade, except maybe in name only to avoid unnecessary scandal. But even if they put off the divorce for a little longer, one thing is certain: Things are going to change.

Of course, Rosaline always knew this current phase of her life was going to end, knew since they brought Damiano to his knees that it would end sooner than expected - but having a date to attach to that vague end is something else entirely, and it makes her throat suddenly tight.

Out of nowhere, she remembers that heartbeat of hesitation she saw on Benvolio's face before he congratulated her, and with sudden melancholy that saying comes to her, "for every door that closes, another one opens". Sometimes it's the other way around, she thinks: Sometimes a door that opens slams shut another one – and one can only ever walk through one door at once.

But maybe that rule can be broken, Rosaline thinks with sudden, wild hope.

"You wanted to talk about what happened earlier?"

It feels like a make-or-break kind of moment, Rosaline's heart hammering almost painfully in her throat, and again there's that hesitation on Benvolio's face, longer this time - and then pushed aside once again.

"I was just going to say... I'm... sorry, about that."

Rosaline's heart slinks out of her throat to settle heavy and aching in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't know what came over me – I guess it was all the stress of the past weeks, and then that meeting..."

Something's off, she thinks, just a gut feeling but a strong one: he's not meeting her eyes for longer than a second, and he's rubbing the back of his neck nervously… But then, that's probably just embarrassment at having to have this conversation at all. The feeling that he's not saying what he really wants to say – that must just be wishful thinking on her part.

"I get it," Rosaline says before she can say the other thing that sits at the tip of her tongue. "It's alright. No harm, no foul."

"You sure?"

"Of course." The smile she forces onto her face feels like it's going to split her apart. "Now excuse me, I have to spread the word that I'll be a productive member of society again soon."

In three weeks, her mind repeats dazedly, wondering why she's thinking about endings at all when she just got offered a new beginning. _Pull yourself together,_ Rosaline chides herself as she picks up her phone once more to call Livia, _this is the only thing you've wanted since you first started working on your thesis again._

Well, not the _only_ thing perhaps.

***

 

As expected, Livia is happy for her – but that doesn't mean she's letting Rosaline off the hook concerning their earlier, Benvolio-related conversation.

"That's amazing, Rose! I'm so happy for you, it sounds like a great opportunity!"

"It really is!" So great, in fact, that Rosaline is beginning to feel more and more ridiculous about the fact that one of the first things she thought about when she got the news is what it would mean for her and Benvolio. At least, it seems like she's not the only one silly enough to do so:

"Any other big developments today? News of the Montague-Capulets, perhaps?"

"The Montague-Capulets are getting a divorce, as scheduled." Rosaline tries to sound matter-of-fact and determined, but it comes out just flat and toneless and a little too clipped.

"You didn't talk to him?" Rosaline can practically feel the cuff on the arm her sister would deliver if she was here right now.

"I did. He apologized and told me it was just an overreaction, you know, all that stress, and that it didn't mean anything."

"What?!" Livia hasn't sounded this shocked since - well, since Rosaline told her that she did indeed accidentally marry a Montague. "Well clearly, he was lying!"

"Why would he lie about that?"

"Because apparently, you're both idiots." Her sister sighs agitatedly. "At least tell him how you feel."

"I'm not going to do that. He made it clear that he doesn't feel about me that way, so I don't want to make things awkward. And I _don't_ want him to feel like he owes me anything. He finally got free of his uncle – he shouldn't be tied down again."

Livia protests some more, something about giving Benvolio the chance to make an informed decision and the concept of long-distance relationships, but Rosaline has made a choice of her own: She's going to let him put _himself_ first for once.

And maybe someday, they can think about this again. Maybe when she comes back (her contract is limited for one year after all, for now at least), whatever was slowly growing between them is still there, and can still be nurtured.

It doesn't sound very convincing even to her own mind.

But there's no time to dwell on things that could have been, because the long-anticipated wedding is drawing closer, and Rosaline is drawn into a whirlwind of last-minute preparations that take up almost all of her time and energy, especially once Juliet and her mother have a fight that ends with Juliet standing outside their door with a gigantic folder of wedding-related stuff and declaring their home her new strategic headquarters.

The contents of said folder, everything from the caterer's emergency phone number to the still ever-changing seating chart (luckily distilled down to a mere 250 guests by now), don't stay neatly filed for long, and soon the living-room looks like a bridal magazine threw up all over it. Rosaline helps Juliet make a few last-minute changes on things that no one except for Giuliana ever wanted and that can still be realized without too much damage, and talks her out of changes that are motivated purely out of spite and impossible to realize.

Benvolio, meanwhile, steers Romeo away from the brink of a nervous breakdown when he finds himself experiencing writers' block while writing his vows. (" _Me_!", Rosaline hears him howl once, "I'm a _poet_! Making beautiful words is _literally_ the thing I should be best at!").

In the evening after one such day, when the house has gone blessedly quiet and empty, Rosaline and Benvolio are sitting in the garden again, cocooned in blankets against the first crispness of fall, sipping red wine and trying to clear their heads of problems like the correct order of place cards and which words rhyme with "love".

"You know, I think we did everything right with our wedding."

Rosaline looks at Benvolio incredulously.

"I mean, apart from being drunk out of our skulls. But we didn't have to go through all of this bullshit. At least our wedding was _fun_." He smiles mischievously. "And there was glitter."

Rosaline smiles back even though her throat goes dry. As if it had become some kind of Pavlov's bell, the mere mention of glitter still triggers memories within her, of the way it had clung to Benvolio's hair and made it gleam multicolored in the flashing neon lights illuminating their hotel room. How it had tasted dry and flaky on his lips and his skin, and not even that had stopped her from wanting to taste more of him and ever more…

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts and sets aside her half-full wine glass, just to be on the safe side, self-control-wise.

"I swear to God if you tell Juliet her wedding needs glitter, I will _kill_ you. We've just finished making the last changes to the decorations theme, and glitter will _not_ go with it."

He laughs, a sound like the soft cashmere blanket wrapped around her (a belated wedding gift from Isabella and Helena), and if she could, Rosaline would wrap herself into the sound in the same way.

"I promise I won't. We can't have the maid of honor and the groom have a nervous breakdown this close to the wedding."

In the end, no one has a nervous breakdown, though their little cousins keep them plenty busy. This has the upside that the only difficult thing about being around Benvolio after The Kiss is trying to hold herself perfectly still while lying in bed next to him, instead of turning over, telling him she's hopelessly in love _and_ in lust with him, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Still, she doesn't regret not going down that road. Even with _Montague & Sons'_ company by-laws changed in his favor and the new freedom from his uncle's iron rule this brings, Benvolio's life is a busy one. He still returns home later than seems altogether reasonable, and while it makes keeping a handle on her own emotions easier, it still alarms the part of her that's used to fretting and worrying at the drop of a hat.

But things really do seem to be looking up for Benvolio, especially after he rallies the courage to confront his uncle again - alone this time, and with the aim of clearing the air and finding a way to move forward together instead of remaining locked in silent animosity and ruthless power struggles forever. Rosaline admires the capacity for forgiveness this demonstrates, though she can't imagine being so gracious herself – not after what his uncle must have put him through for years before she even witnessed a fraction of it. But Benvolio insists, and miraculously, it seems to be working: Benvolio is put in charge of the residential construction sector, just like he wanted, and the next time they meet, at the rehearsal dinner, Damiano is even almost friendly towards her.

She doesn't entirely trust the peace, because Rosaline wouldn't put it past Montague senior to pretend to play along until after the wedding and then push back even harder. But it's undeniable that since their conversation, Benvolio comes home happy and overflowing with excitement about all his new projects, and really, that's all that matters.

It's a thought that sustains her as her three-week-deadline looms closer, and suddenly the wedding weekend has arrived, and everyone is packing up and trekking to the gorgeous mountainside hotel the young couple (or rather, their image-conscious parents) have chosen for the big event.

Rosaline, Juliet and Livia spend the night before at one of the hotel suites, because they're not missing out on a single tradition and separating the bride and groom before the wedding is on the list as well. The arrangement has the advantage that Rosaline doesn't have to go far when her alarm rings at the crack of dawn the next day, and can basically spend the next few hours in zombie mode as she's being primped and fussed over by the make-up-artist Giuliana sent by (miraculously, without using the opportunity for a dig in her direction). There are dresses to straighten and elaborate hair-do's to create, and when they're finally ready to go, Rosaline is all out of patience – but she does look pretty great, she has to admit.

Still, when she walks down the aisle before Juliet and uncle Silvestro, she almost stumbles when she feels Benvolio's eyes on her – and then feels her stomach flutter when they take their seats and he leans close to whisper:

“You look beautiful." She half-expected another lame "nice", but he seems to have learned from that mistake - though he does sound a little startled, as if that wasn't the word he had intended to use, and Rosaline knows with a pleasant heaviness in her chest that he means it.

“Thank you.”

The ceremony is short and beautiful, and by the time Juliet says "I do", Rosaline feels herself tear up even though she's not normally a sentimental person.

"Hah!," Benvolio hisses triumphantly, "I knew even you couldn't get through this without crying!"

"Whereas I hear you had your first good cry before you even left the hotel."

She didn't just hear it, in fact: Mercutio sent her a short video earlier of Benvolio and Romeo sharing a tearful hug.

"I'm not afraid of showing emotion. My baby cousin is getting married - I feel like that justifies a few tears!"

He's not wrong, Rosaline thinks as she watches the couple exchange rings. Unbidden, her eyes fall on her own wedding ring, sparkling softly in the gleaming candlelight. Who knows how much longer she'll be wearing it?

Rosaline sighs, and Benvolio takes her hand and squeezes it reassuringly. For a moment, she has the irrational thought that he must have guessed what she's thinking about, then she realizes that of course he thinks she's just emotional about the wedding.

"Don't worry Capulet, they'll be fine. Mostly."

"I know," she replies and feels that he's right: her baby cousin isn't quite the helpless babe anymore, and neither for that matter is her sister. They're learning to stand their own ground and fight their own battles, and they're shaping their own future happiness.

But enough with the morose musings, she tells herself – it's time to celebrate.

And celebrate they do - there's champagne immediately upon exiting the church, a few games for the couple that Livia slipped out to prepare, and a first round of photographs that turns out less boring than it could due to Mercutio's antics.

Then they're off back to the hotel, whose ballroom doubles as their venue. It's a very convenient choice, and one in which Rosaline actually supported Giuliana when she picked it as her favorite. The hotel ballroom is gorgeous; woodpanelled, lit by a gigantic antique chandelier and opening up to a terrace with a view over the entire sprawling valley. The fact that the hotel also happens to have appeared in several celebrity weddings is enough to make Giuliana happy, and Benvolio has personally approved the hotel restaurant's suggested wine list and deemed it sufficient. For their uncles, the horrendous rent on the place was argument enough: Silvestro because he wanted to show up Damiano, and the Montague patriarch because the wedding gives him ample opportunity for little digs about strenuous expenses and the Capulets' financial state - digs which, in turn, encouraged her uncle to be even more lenient with his daughter's and wife's increasingly extravagant wishes. Rosaline shudders to think about the insane amounts of money flowing into this wedding, but damn if it doesn't make for a magical experience.

All their preparations, research, and endless comparisons of different wedding-related services really paid off: The company in charge of flowers and decorations has transformed the ballroom into something resembling a magical forest. The caterers provide one culinary out-of-body experience after another. And the band has impeccable timing in switching up the music just enough to keep things from getting boring, but not enough so as to jar people out of their conversations.

Not that Rosaline can quite enjoy any lengthy conversation yet: As maid of honor (well, matron, technically, but the title came before her own wedding, so she's keeping it) and best man, it falls to her and Benvolio to handle most of the logistics, point people towards the gift table, make sure the time frame is being adhered to, and take care of last-minute crises.

By the time Juliet asks everyone to take their seats so dinner can be served, Rosaline is more than thankful to catch a break. The break in question is extended by the fact that the fathers of both groom and bride don't want to miss out on the opportunity to share their thoughts with the room in depth, and by the time her uncle has finally finished his soliloquy, Rosaline almost misses her cue for her own speech.

Her speech is markedly shorter than the ones preceding it, though still not exactly snappy, but in her own biased opinion, it's polished and eloquent and suitably festive. Plus, there are quotes in there to illustrate her points, and the facts about marriage stem from actual research.

Benvolio's speech, the last one following hers, is the opposite: short and tongue-in-cheek and presented with spontaneous, off-the-cuff charm - and absolutely perfect.

"Sometimes in life," Benvolio begins, voice just dramatic enough to indicate the weight of his speech subject, "something happens that is so unlikely that anyone would deny it could happen at all. And yet, when it does, it soon becomes clear that it is - absolutely and perfectly and without a doubt - right." He pauses to let people catch up. "I think in our dear old Verona Cove, that unlikely something would be the idea of a Capulet and a Montague falling in love. Granted, it began with a drunken mistake…"

Chuckles follow his words, but Rosaline doesn't join in, too preoccupied by the ring of some other truth swinging along with his words.

Benvolio continues: "… because the night these two met, Romeo was in fact _not_ invited to Juliet's improv group meeting, but to a party two houses down the street."

He pauses to allow for another laugh, warming up under the attention.

"But anyone who knows my cousin knows he can never pass up a chance at an audience and, well, apparently it was a very eventful improv-evening."

Another round of laughs, during which Benvolio picks up his glass.

"So, let's all raise our glasses," the guests follow his example, "to the beauty of things that shouldn't have happened; the unimaginable and seemingly impossible. Because sometimes, those turn out just right."

Rosaline raises her glass along with everyone, telling herself to stop being silly when the thought flits throught her mind that his speech could have been about them a well, minus the improv group. And just when she's almost managed to shove the thought aside (because this isn't about _them_ , it's about Romeo and Juliet), Benvolio turns towards her to clink his glass against hers.

"To things that shouldn't have happened," he repeats his own words, and Rosaline's throat tightens. It can't be, she thinks, he can't mean…. But his eyes are on hers, firm and yet impossibly soft, and her heart does somersaulting little jumps.

"Oh just kiss your wife already," Romeo's voice cuts harshly through her jumbled thoughts, "we all know you want to."

Beside him, Juliet leans forward to address them as well, eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Just don't steal our wedding-thunder."

Rosaline is about to laugh it off when she realizes that there are quite a few eyes still on them, and Romeo's remark came out a little louder than he perhaps intended it to (or perhaps that's exactly what he intended, the little shit). In any case, people are watching, no doubt expecting a couple barely less smitten with each other than the actual bride and groom, and since they decided to wait with the divorce until things have settled down at _Montague & Sons_, Rosaline thinks it might be best to play along – one last public appearance for the Montague-Capulets.

Smiling, she turns her face towards Benvolio, head tilted back in invitation. For a second, she's afraid he didn't get the hint. Then he slowly leans down and kisses her, just a little off-center, a little too light perhaps but lingering long enough to seem genuine. When he breaks the kiss - just in time to stop the butterflies in her stomach from taking flight – he doesn't draw back immediately. Instead, he presses a second kiss to her cheek and whispers into her ear:

"Thank you. For everything."

It's such an odd thing to say that it stuns her for a moment - but then, perhaps the message is perfectly reasonable and it's just the timing that is odd, in the middle of a wedding reception with 200 guests watching them. To be fair, that is a fact she herself forgot about for a moment, and by the time she's reminded of it because everyone resumes their conversations and the noise level rises, the band is announcing that it's time for the couple's first dance.

They dutifully follow Juliet and Romeo over to the dance floor, forming a circle around them to watch their first dance as a married couple. Their song choice is one of those wedding classics that are at the same time unbearably cheesy and heartwarmingly sincere, and it's clear that, for the duration of that one dance, they too forget about everyone around.

Then the song blends into another one and the singer asks the guests to join the couple on the floor, and Benvolio holds out his hand to pull her into the fray. Another perfectly appropriate married-couple-thing to do, but Rosaline barely thinks about that for more than a second before they're waltzing off, and soon the slow music turns faster and she's whisked away to whirl around the dance floor.

Throughout the evening, whether they're dancing or leading the guests in the occasional goofy wedding game or cheering on Juliet and Romeo as they cut their cake, Rosaline and Benvolio have no trouble keeping up what used to be a very strenuous masquerade. Now, it's just a steadying hand on her back or a kiss to his cheek or a dance to a slow song, nothing that requires any effort and, more often than not, gestures so small and easy she doesn't even consciously take note of them.

Still, when she sneaks out to the balcony, long after midnight but with the party inside still in full swing and the first guests only slowly beginning to filter out, Rosaline is happy to be away from prying eyes for a moment. She purposefully picks a corner of the balcony hidden out of sight from the ballroom windows and allows herself a moment of peace after this whirlwind of a day.

When she hears footsteps approaching, Rosaline feels a slight pinch of irritation – but it turns out to be only Benvolio, and he doesn't seem to want to talk much.

He leans against the railing next to her, only shooting her a quick glance as if to make sure she's okay. When she smiles reassuringly, he turns his eyes to the view before them, taking in the last few pinpricks of light from the town far below while Rosaline watches him out of the corner of her eye.

He looks relaxed and happy and beautiful, and her insides clench with sudden longing.

It doesn't help that the memory of his kiss when he finished his speech is still fresh on her mind, as is the pressure of his hand on her back when they danced; the warmth of it still racing along her skin.

A little voice in her mind points out how close he is, how easy it would be to lean even closer and kiss him, and just when she's about to shut it off again as she's trained herself to do over the past weeks and months, another thought chimes in, uncharacteristically rebellious: Why not give in _just this once_?

They've only got two days left together – how much damage can she _possibly_ do in that time?

And then Benvolio makes the decision a whole lot easier for her by shrugging out of his tux jacket to drape it around her shoulders – and lingering far longer than the gesture requires, his arm resting lightly on her shoulder as if waiting to be banished but trying its luck anyway.

Rosaline turns a little, deeper into his arms, pushes aside the feeling that this is somehow a momentous thing, and presses a kiss to the corner of his lips, soft and lingering.

When she draws back, Benvolio only looks at her for a moment, then he starts scanning the empty balcony.

"There's no one around," he points out, the implication clear: there's no need for fake displays of affection.

"No, there isn't." She says it slowly and emphatically, but just to be very clear, she adds: "It's just us."

She can see the moment the words sink in, his eyes going wide for a moment and then dark with desire. She shivers, even though the jacket around her shoulders provides plenty of warmth.

"Are you sure?"

Rosaline doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

It's hard to tell who moves first but suddenly they're kissing again, properly, and it doesn't take more than a few seconds before all hesitation is chased away, and there's only hunger and relief and more hunger because she's been wanting this for so, _so_ long – and apparently, so has he.

In no time at all, Rosaline is pressed against the balcony railing, the cold iron bar against her back completely forgotten as Benvolio does an excellent job of keeping her warm, his hands sliding under the tux jacket to trace her sides, his lips finding that spot on her neck again that he's shown himself quite an expert of before, and his hips pressed so tightly against hers that it doesn't take much of a mental strain to imagine where they are heading, fast. And Rosaline has no objections to that whatsoever, except for their current location.

“We should take this inside.”

“You mean go back to the party?” Benvolio looks exactly as unenthused about that idea as she feels.

“No,” she replies quickly, then uses the break to breathe a kiss to his jaw and feel him shiver, “to our room.”

Without another word, Benvolio takes her hand and starts pulling her to the terrace's side exit, the one skirting past the ballroom and back to the lobby.

But as much as she shares his impatience, Rosaline feels a little guilty about just ditching their cousins' wedding.

"We shouldn't just sneak off without saying goodbye."

"If you think I'm going back in there to let Mercutio make his smug little comments about this,” he gestures at the two of then, “you are hilariously wrong."

He does have a point, she thinks: if they left together now, looking exactly like they just spent the last half hour making out on the balcony (at least, Benvolio does, and she's pretty sure she matches him for swollen lips and tousled hair), everyone will feel like it's their duty to comment on it.

"Let's just let this be about the two of us, okay?"

And well, who is she to protest when that's basically what she promised when she kissed him?

They maneuver the lobby as if trying to sneak into the hotel rather than simply heading to a room that is already booked and paid for under their name. They make a wide berth around the ballroom, but just when it seems the coast is clear, they spot a group of wedding guests waiting by the elevator, and Benvolio abruptly pulls her out of sight behind an antique wooden wardrobe, stifling her surprised giggle with a kiss. It's perhaps a bit silly to be sneaking around like teenagers with overly strict parents, but it's also exhilarating, and between being on the lookout for other guests and diving behind furniture to hide (and make out some more), it takes them some time to get to their room two floors up.

By the time they do, Rosaline is too impatient to think about the fact that this is wildly different from the way they've been sharing a room for the past months – all she can think is that they've wasted enough time.

But Benvolio doesn't seem to quite share her impatience: when she reaches for him as soon as he's closed the door behind them, he yields easily – but his movements are hesitant, dreamlike, as if he isn't quite sure that this is actually happening, and the idea is so preposterous Rosaline almost has to laugh. Sure, the first time this almost happened, it couldn't have come as more of a surprise. But now, tonight, this isn't a surprise – it's an inevitability.

Still for a moment, despite the fact that her heart is threatening to burst out of her chest, she's afraid that giving in was a mistake after all. Because there's endless sweetness in the way he kisses her, but it turns bitter with the thought that it will be taken away soon – and thinking of the boxes waiting to be filled with her things back home, Rosaline knows all too well just how soon. How soon those boxes will be shipped off, and she along with them, to a new life without him.

Tonight, Rosaline doesn't want to think about “without him“.

She pushes harder against him instead and kisses back with enough ferocity to drive off all sweetness. And when he growls and responds in kind, the sadness too is already almost forgotten, pushed aside by overwhelming need.

She peels off his tuxedo jacket and rips open his starched shirt, causing a button to fly off and miss her by inches.

Benvolio laughs, and Rosaline smirks in satisfaction

“I've always wanted to do that.“

To his credit, Benvolio at least _tries_ to curb his smugness at having driven her to such wild impatience, although part of it still shines through in his sharp-toothed grin.

“Anything else you've always wanted to do?“, he asks slyly, and Rosaline doesn't need to be invited twice.

She gets him down to his socks and boxers before he slows her down, stopping her hands in their tracks to proclaim that she is now at an advantage that must be remedied.

He does so right away, the deep V of her dress easily pushed down her arms after a quick tug on the zipper down her back. His laughter fades when she lets the dress slip down to her waist, but the fire in his eyes does not, and she shivers at the sense of power it sends rushing through her.

Despite his obvious urgency, Benvolio takes the time to let his eyes rake over her, followed by his hands and then his lips as he lets them explore in the same slow, thorough way that makes her knees buckle.

It doesn't take long before an impatient little whine escapes her, and she feels his lips curve into a smile where they're currently resting on the swell of her breast, just inches from where she really wants his mouth right now.

"Benvolio, for the love of God can you stop being such a tease and get a move on?"

He shakes his head, beard scratching her sensitive skin and racing a shiver down her spine.

"Nope. I have to make sure it matches my memory."

"Your… you _remember_ Vegas?"

"Not all of it. But what little I do remember has been carefully conserved."

Rosaline huffs, but to be fair, she can't really blame him – not when she herself has revisited her remaining memories of that night more than a few times.

Still, that's no reason to let him get away with being so goddamn _smug_.

"Well," she says, mischievous smirk tugging at her lips, "we'll just have to refresh those memories."

And when she gets started on that plan, slipping off his boxers and thus definitely opening up territory they didn't cover in Vegas, Benvolio's patience finally finds an end too. He grips her balled-up dress to push it the rest of the way down her hips, and there's no more unnecessary teasing after that.

There _is_ a brief, horrified pause when Rosaline remembers the little matter of birth control, but Benvolio laughs and rifles around his travel bag until he procures a packet of condoms.

"Don't judge me. Mercutio slipped them into my bag, he only told me about it at dinner." He grimaces. "He means well."

"And for once, I am thankful," Rosaline says, and immediately vows never to think as much as one bad thought about their friend.

Then she goes straight to not thinking about anyone outside this room anymore as Benvolio lowers her to the bed.

Being with him like this is an exhilaratingly strange experience, familiar and yet wondrously new at the same time: His tousled hair, a sight she has seen across the breakfast table dozens of times and that still seems different when she knows it's _her_ who has wreaked such havoc on his head. His body pressed against hers skin to skin, and available for her hands to explore, no longer restricted to safe, comforting touches. And the endlessly soft way he's looking at her as they move together, something she's caught occasional glimpses of but which has never been so bright and clear until now – and which she now knows she is never going to forget, though it is going to scare her when she thinks about it tomorrow.

But _tomorrow_ is still a long way off.

She kisses him until the rest of her fear has dissolved, pulls him even closer, and lets him make her come undone.

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright my dears, just a little bit more angst until we've made it.  
> For an extra dose of FEELINGS, I listened to "Leaving you behind" by Clean Cut Kid for this chapter, and it made me cry. Also, "Motion Picture Soundtrack" in the violin version from the Westworld Soundtrack.  
> This was originally supposed to be the last chapter, but I couldn't bring myself to finish just yet, and so I split it up. Am I dragging this out as long as I possibly can? You better believe I am.

For the second time in her life, Rosaline Capulet wakes up hungover in a hotel room with a naked Benvolio Montague in bed beside her. (And this time she knows for sure he's naked.)

This could not be more different from the last time though.

For one thing, the things she's feeling aren't shock, horror and revulsion, manifesting in the urge to scream, thoroughly shower, and then get tested for STDs. (In hindsight, perhaps her opinion of him was a little more negative than warranted.)

No, her first feeling upon waking and seeing who's lying in bed next to her is an overwhelming sense of _rightness_. She'll have to get up and put an end to it soon, she knows - but for now, she feels in her bones that this right here is perfect.

With that instinctual human sense for being watched, Benvolio opens his eyes at that moment, and there's an actual flutter in her stomach when it takes him about half a second before he's smiling sleepily at her.

"Morning, Capulet." It's an echo of their usual goodnights, a little tradition in itself, and she answers as he expects her to:

"Morning, Montague."

"How are you feeling?"

Rosaline almost laughs out loud: somehow he managed to ask the one question that she finds hardest to answer right now. How _is_ she feeling? Slightly hungover. Wide awake despite the fact that she can't have slept more than two or three hours. Irrationally angry at the world for this display of superbly bad timing. And most of all: overcome with love for the man smiling at her in the soft morning light, open and trusting and, she knows now, hers completely if she was selfish enough to ask.

She settles for the only thing she can even imagine saying out loud.

"Not as hungover as I could be, I think."

He laughs softly.

"That's good. We don't want another Vegas surprise."

"I mean, we are already married - what could we do, accidentally get divorced?"

Another soft laugh, one that invites her to join in.

But the mention of divorce, jokingly as it was made, reminds her that as much as this morning feels like a beginning, it's really an end.

Abruptly, she sits up and turns towards the nightstand, where she remembers seeing a bottle of water last night.

She pours herself a glass and gulps it down.

"It's fitting that we're back here, isn't it? The two of us in a hotel room, after a wedding."

"Very poetic," Rosaline agrees, but her insides clench painfully. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looks around the room, searching for an excuse to get up and do... anything just to get away from her thoughts.

But drowsy as she is, she can't immediately think of anything to do, and suddenly Benvolio is sitting up behind her, scooting close to press a kiss to her shoulder.

"You're not seriously thinking about getting up, are you? It's 6.30. There won't even be any breakfast yet."

Breakfast, she thinks, that would have been an excuse to get away from him before her throat feels even more tight, but she'll just have to think of something else now.

Or does she? Technically, she allowed herself this one night, and judging by the fact that the sky outside is only just starting to turn grey with the first light, that one night isn't quite over yet. Besides, the damage is already done - she may as well allow herself to be weak for just a little longer.

"Well, if there isn't any breakfast yet, I guess I might as well stay."

She lays back down again, on her side and facing away from him because she doesn't quite trust herself to look at him yet. But Benvolio doesn't seem to mind: he only drapes an arm around her waist and pulls her back against him, and Rosaline doesn't resist. It's too easy to fit herself into the curve of his body, almost as if she'd never done anything else - and oddly, his calm, casual demeanor works to calm her down as well, makes her think that maybe all of this wasn't as fateful as it feels. Like maybe they can still be friends and don't have to remain "almost-somethings" forever.

"Lucky for me, I guess - otherwise I would be abandoned for eggs and bacon."

"Don't beat yourself up about it - no man can contend with a good breakfast buffet."

Benvolio nips teasingly at her shoulder, then soothes the sting of his teeth with his lips. Together with his next words, it has the effect he no doubt intended: to make heat spread through her, right to her center, and memories of last night flare up again.

"If I wasn't still half-asleep, I would take that as a challenge to change your mind."

"Good luck with that - you know I am notoriously stubborn, right?"

"I know," Benvolio says, sounding drowsy again as he nuzzles into her shoulder. "But for now at least, can you stop being contrary and go back to sleep?"

"Just this once," Rosaline says, because this light teasing is helping to distract her from the increasingly bright daylight and all that it will bring with it - and because she'll be damned if she lets him have the last word.

Benvolio pulls her even closer with a little sigh, and soon she can feel his breath puff evenly against her skin.

If she and Benvolio had ever been real, she thinks in a fit of bitterness, this is how she would have woken up the past months, dragging herself out from sleep to join him for breakfast even if he gets up insanely early. On weekends, on the other hand, he would have curled around her like he's doing now, nuzzling into her neck to murmur "go back to sleep", and she would have relented just like she's doing now, warm and soft and exactly where she's supposed to be.

“Oh God,” Benvolio suddenly groans against the back of her neck, “I just realised, the others are going to give us so much shit about leaving early.”

"Probably," Rosaline mumbles, slowly drifting off to sleep again.

"Not that I'm complaining, mind you - it was totally worth it."

"Yup." Rosaline is quickly losing her battle against sleep, so she doesn't turn around, but she can imagine his smug smile well enough. "Definitely worth it."

***

 

Despite Benvolio's prognosis, breakfast is a quiet affair: the newlywed couple leave for their honeymoon within half an hour of the guests making it downstairs, an event Rosaline completely forgot about but which she's glad they didn't miss. The remaining wedding guests send Juliet and Romeo off with as much enthusiasm as their hangovers allow, then turn to their breakfast without so much as a single comment on her and Benvolio's whereabouts for the later hours of the night.

Even Mercutio only grins and winks mischievously when he sees them enter the dining room together, but apart from that, he remains uncharacteristically quiet. The only person who does bring it up is Livia, cornering Rosaline by the eggs-and-bacon tray, but she at least glances around furtively and lowers her voice before asking:

"So. You left early last night…"

"Yes, we did," Rosaline says, squarely meeting her sister's inquiring gaze. "But it doesn't change anything."

Livia looks like she's biting down on a response. "As long as you didn't do anything you regret…"

Rosaline looks over at their table, where Benvolio is listening to a wildly gesticulating Mercutio, looking like hell with his tousled hair and pale face but smiling nonetheless.

"No," she turns back to Livia and attempts a smile of her own, "I don't regret a single thing."

And it's the truth.

***

 

The drive back home is quiet as well, and so is the rest of their Sunday. Benvolio offers to help her finish packing, but she's begun to implement a rather complicated sorting system, and since he's already taking a day off work just to help her tomorrow, she doesn't want to impose on him any more than she already is.

So she packs on her own, deciding which of her things she'll need enough to try and cram them into the tiny room she'll be living in for the next year. The rest of her stuff, as Benvolio has assured her, she can leave here as long as she needs to, but Rosaline still makes sure to pack everything up neatly so he can store it away - although a part of her is childishly tempted not to do anything of the sort and just leave everything spread out, as if to remind everyone that she used to be part of this house and always will be.

She doesn't give in to the impulse, of course, but it only serves to add to the forlorn feeling inside her. It's simply strange to be walking around the house and gathering things back into boxes, feeling ridiculously as if she's leaving a beloved home despite having only lived here for a few months.

But, she tells herself, she'll make a new home in her new city, where she at least has a place to live already. Her new boss helped her find it, a walk-up in a friend's house that she's getting fairly cheap. The professor assured her she wouldn't need to feel obligated to take the tiny one-bedroom studio if she'd like to look for something bigger and more comfortable, but Rosaline assured her it would be big enough - after all, she would leave most of her things at home with her husband (at least, until Benvolio got finished arranging their divorce, as they planned for him to do at some point), and spend plenty of weekends away. The older woman was satisfied with the explanation, and there was no need to disclose the real reason she'd need the apartment: that contrary to what everyone assumes, it won't be Montague money supporting her fresh start but her own humble income as a researcher, and a small apartment is all she can afford on her own. Benvolio made the down-payment - as a loan, Rosaline insisted - but come next month, the rent will be paid from her own account.

As much as its been a much-needed relief not to have to worry about the most existential basics over the last few months, Rosaline did feel a flash of pride at signing a lease and an employment contract in her own name and knowing that everything she'd need, she would provide for herself again from now on. Benvolio told her that, should she need anything over the next months, she should not hesitate to call him, and after about the fifth repetition of the offer, she told him she would even though she has no intention to do so. Her days as a "kept woman" are over, and it feels once more like she's getting a little bit of herself back; like another piece of her has been repaired and polished and fit back into place, perhaps even shinier and better than before.

And so, despite the lump in her throat when she packs the last of her things into a rented transporter, despite the little stab in her chest when she watches Benvolio lock the front door and climb into the truck beside her, there's also a sense of triumphant excitement inside her.

***

 

Ten hours later, the only thing Rosaline feels is exhausted. When they loaded her things into the truck this morning, it didn't seem like all that much. And it wasn't, really, but with Juliet and Romeo on their honeymoon, Livia working and Mercutio off to attend some sudden and mysterious family emergency, it's just her and Benvolio against a whole lot of stairs and possibly a few more books than strictly necessary.

And yet, Benvolio still insists on driving back home as soon as they've finished carrying up the boxes and setting up her bed, desk and bookshelf, the only pieces of furniture big enough that she needs help putting them together. Looking everywhere but at her, he even declines her offer to crash on the bed he just helped her put together, and drive back in the morning.

“The truck needs to be returned to the rental place early tomorrow, and I need to get into work early as well.”

Childishly, Rosaline feels momentarily offended that he considers rental trucks and work more important than spending every last minute with her – but then, _she's_ the one who made the decision to end their time together. _She's_ the one who's in love with him, and has decided not to do anything about it. That's on her.

“Better get back then,” she only says, voice flat.

“Yes,” he agrees with her but doesn't make a move to actually leave – and then suddenly Rosaline's arms are around him, and his close around her a few startled heartbeats later. Burying her face in his neck, she breathes in the faint scent of his cologne on the collar of his jacket, its familiarity equal parts comforting and painful, and allows herself to say at least a little bit of all the things she wants to say.

“I'm going to miss you.”

“You're only saying that because there's no one around to hear.”

Trust him to make a joke now just to make her feel better, Rosaline thinks fondly, and it simultaneously makes her feel better and worse.

“Would you like me to go back to Verona Cove and shout it from the rooftops?”

“Nah, I'm good,” he says, giving her a quick squeeze before he gently pushes her away to look at her.

“Never thought I'd see you sad to see me go,” he comments, an obvious observation, but she's been thinking along the same lines just now. “It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?”

“I wouldn't have missed it for the world,” she says, with a sincerity that comes easily, and now she thinks she sees a treacherous glint in his eyes as well.

“Well,” he says, fidgeting with the car keys, “I guess I'll see you around. Have fun being a divorcee.”

She has to laugh, but her throat feels tight as she watches him turn and walk out the door, only turning back once to wink at her.

Then the door closes behind him and Rosaline remains standing in the middle of the room for a moment, looking around forlornly at the chaos around her before she bends down to the nearest box and opens it. Getting to work on settling in will be the best thing to combat the sudden onslaught of loneliness, she thinks - and then she freezes mid-movement as her eyes fall on the topmost object in the box, one she thinks Juliet packed some time last week: a bright pink picture frame, and inside it what may be the most consequential picture she ever took: her and Benvolio in Vegas, glitter-covered and smiling and freshly married.

Looking at it, she suddenly feels as if she's been underwater for a long time and is now finally emerging to breathe again, oxygen flooding her brain as one realization makes it through: This picture was taken at one of the worst times of her life, and yet she's smiling and genuinely having fun. And the reason is standing right next to her in the photo - and currently about to walk out of her life.

And with sudden, inescapable clarity, Rosaline knows: She doesn't want to lose the man next to her in that photo. She doesn't want to go back to being just someone he lived with for a while, or a friend who helped him through some tough times, or a woman he had sex with once. She wants to be the woman she saw reflected in his eyes the night of the wedding, wants to be the person he spends the rest of his life with.

She rushes over to the window and throws it open.

“Ben?” The truck is still standing outside her house, motor already running, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thinks he can't hear her, that he'll just drive off and she'll never get the chance to tell him – which is ridiculous, since he has a phone and she can just call him later. Still, later she may have lost her courage, or talked herself out of it, or be hit by a falling piano. It really does feel like a now-or-never kind of situation.

Leaning dangerously far out the window, she yells at the top of her lungs:

"Montague!"

The door of the truck opens and Benvolio leans out, craning around his head to look up at her window.

“Why are you hollering my name all over the street?”

“I don't want to be a divorcee.”

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it - we're (almost) at the end of our long, looong journey. I'm 95% sure I'll write a small epilogue, so there will be one more chapter probably, but this is the big one. It's made of 100% tooth-rotting fluff and it made me cry while I wrote it, and I sincerely and somewhat pettily hope it will do the same to you.  
> That said, I just want to say how incredible it's been to write this fic and get so, so much support from so many people over such a long period of time who have commented and reblogged and talked me through plot holes and generally been amazing at motivating me to keep writing. You've actually made this my most-commented-on fic, and that's in comparison with fics for a much bigger fandom.  
> In conclusion: Thank you, and please never stop being this awesome!  
> Oh, and if any of you saw the playlist: This is where "Cover me up" by Noah Guthrie comes in as background music - just to set the mood.

_“I don't want to be a divorcee."_

Leaning out of a fourth-floor window to yell at a parked truck, Rosaline wonders for an idle moment if asking a person to _stay_ married still counts as a proposal, before she realizes that there are more important things to deal with right now.

Down on the street, Benvolio kills the truck's motor to get out, and Rosaline slams the window shut and bolts down the stairs.

When she opens the entrance door, Benvolio is already standing there.

“What did you just say?”

“I don't want to go through with the divorce," Rosaline blurts out, finding that saying the words a second time feels just as liberating as it did the first time. "Or really, I don't give a shit about the marriage, but I don't want this to be the end of _us_.”

Benvolio's eyes go wide.

"Then what do you want?"

“I want us to take a shot at being real. To have more than two nights in hotel rooms. Be more than just _“what if”_...”, she breaks off, steels herself and forces herself to keep talking. “If that's what you want.”

And then, heart racing in her chest, Rosaline waits, standing before the rows of letterboxes in the lobby of her new building and feeling very Julia-Roberts-in-Notting-Hill, _'just a girl, standing in front of a boy…'_ , and Benvolio - laughs.

But, she realizes after a few seconds during which her heart may have stopped beating entirely, there's no ridicule in it, only happiness and relief and joy, and then he's grinning broadly and clapping his hands on her shoulders with enough enthusiasm to make her knees buckle.

“Capulet,” he says, grip firm on her shoulders as if to keep her in place and make sure she really listens, “there's _nothing_ I could possibly want more.”

The relieved laugh that escapes her in response sounds more like a sob but she doesn't care, not when Benvolio pulls her closer to lean his forehead against hers and repeat his claim:

"Absolutely nothing."

She doesn't just sound like she's about to cry, Rosaline realizes when she draws back: she actually has to blink away tears before she can look at him.

"Benvolio, I..." She doesn't know what she wants to say, really. _I can't believe I almost let you go? I finally understood that you're the best thing that ever happened to me? I love you?_

None of those seem to want to come out of her mouth.

"I know the timing is ridiculous," she says instead.

"Better late than never," Benvolio shrugs, calm as you please, but Rosaline is suddenly gripped with the fear that he simply hasn't thought this through entirely, and will go back on it once he realises all the implications.

"We'll have to make it work as a long-distance relationship, for a year or more. It will be an incredible hassle."

"I'm sure I can figure out how to bill a rented helicopter as a company expense."

Rosaline opens her mouth for another objection, just wanting to make sure he's got the whole picture before he makes any promises, but Benvolio cuts her off.

"Are you already trying to get out of this again, Capulet? Because the way I see it, there's no way back this time. We're staying married."

Rosaline laughs again, once more with that slightly hysterical, tearful edge to her voice, but at this point, she doesn't even care anymore. Now that those terribly difficult words have been said, Rosaline finds there's only one thing she wants to do.

She learns forward and kisses him, lips still stretched into a grin under hers before he reacts and returns her kiss, sweet and hot and soft and hungry all at the same time and Rosaline wants _all_ of it, all the kisses she's been denying herself for the past months.

Still, it occurs to her some undefinable time later, maybe they should move this upstairs - making out in the downstairs lobby for hours may not leave the best first impression on her new neighbors.

She gets no protest whatsoever when she takes Benvolio's hand and pulls him up the stairs, but he does stop her once they've reached the topmost floor, pulling her to a stop outside the still-open door of her apartment.

“Wait,” he says, and then without warning he picks, no, _sweeps_ her up, off her feet and into his arms – bridal style. “I never carried you over our threshold. I'm pretty sure that's bad luck.”

“Are you serious?” Rosaline can only stare at him. She's learned, over the past months, that she married a giant dork, but still, sometimes it catches her unawares.

“Dead serious,” Benvolio confirms, but he doesn't quite manage to make his expression match his voice – there's a broad smile on his face that won't be chased off, and Rosaline hopes irrationally that it never will be.

“God, you're such a sap,” she says instead of all the other, definitely sappy things she wants to say. “Honestly it's a wonder-” she's cut off on a shriek when he drops her, rather unceremoniously, on her half-made bed – but once she's caught her breath, Rosaline can't say she minds one bit.

“Straight to bed, huh?”, she asks, grinning cheekily. “Shouldn't we talk about this first?”

He shakes his head, plops down beside her and immediately rolls on his side to pull her close with one hand on her hip.

“The night of the wedding, I thought that was all I'd ever get of you. Now suddenly there's a chance it wasn't. I'm making the most of that before you change your mind again.”

He's joking, she hopes, but just in case he isn't, Rosaline pushes herself up, one hand on his chest to prop herself up and look at him seriously.

“I won't. You know that, right? I know it took me a while to get here, but this is it. I've made my decision. I'm not going back on that.”

He holds her gaze, just as serious as he studies her, reaching up with one hand to brush a stray curl behind her ear while the other hand is absentmindedly rubbing her hip, the pad of his thumb brushing her skin where her top is riding up and sending a shiver down her spine. She tries to ignore it, wills him to trust her because she doesn't want him to go into this plagued by doubts – she wants him to be sure of her.

“You probably did say something along the lines of “til death do us part” at our wedding.”

“They may not be as strict on the wording when the bride and groom are blind drunk,” she points out with a grin, then leans down to brush a kiss across his lips. “But the sentiment still stands.”

“Alright then. To have and to hold it is.” He stops running his hand through her hair to cup her face, as if to make good on the “hold” part right then and there, and the gentleness of the gesture combined with the fact that they're actually quoting wedding vows at each other makes this almost a little _too_ much. It's bordering on cheesy, really, and Rosaline is about to make some sort of quip when Benvolio beats her to it: “Now can we have sex again?”

Rosaline laughs, not even pretending to be offended at the less-than-romantic delivery of the suggestion.

“That is an _excellent_ idea,” she says, leaning down for another kiss that doesn't manage to stay soft and gentle for more than a second before it turns heated as her hands start to wander, tugging up his shirt and fumbling with his belt buckle.

And if the idea alone was excellent, the execution is _outstanding_.

Benvolio is like a man unleashed, hands and lips all over her but always looking for signs that she's enjoying herself, that what he's doing is good and _God_ , it _really_ fucking is.

By the time they remember, once again, that protection is a thing and they still need it, he's already made her come on his fingers and is slowly working her up again, and Rosaline decides that she's definitely going to have to get on the pill again, and soon - she's not putting up with this torture anymore in the future.

Cursing, Benvolio jumps to his feet and slips back into the shirt she just got him out of.

"I think I saw a drugstore down by the corner. I'll pop down and get condoms – but if you fall asleep on me again, I _will_ get those divorce papers."

Rosaline laughs dazedly, still soaring from the work of just his hands alone. She's definitely not falling asleep again – not when she knows what else is to come.

Benvolio's not the only one who wants to make up for lost time.

***

 

Much later, Rosaline is snuggling up against her no longer fake husband, skin still thrumming with sensation and heart pounding in time with his as she comes down from what was definitely not the first orgasm of the night and, she hopes, won't be the last one either. Hazy and happy, her thoughts wander this way and that, until Benvolio suddenly interrupts her musings.

"It wasn't just the alcohol, you know."

"What?" In her post-coital haze, Rosaline has trouble making sense of the statement.

"You once asked me why I suggested getting married, remember? I said it was just one of those drunk ideas. And it was, sort of – I definitely wanted to do something stupid and impulsive and piss off my uncle. But that wasn't what gave me the idea in the first place."

Rosaline cranes her head back to look at him, not wanting to miss one bit of detail about this intriguing new revelation as Benvolio goes on.

"For a moment when we sat on that rooftop, I looked at you and thought: _“This is the kind of woman who would make someone want to be the best version of themselves.”_ And you are. Drunk me understood that long before I did." He chuckles. "Of course, drunk me didn't take that revelation to mean I should pursue you properly but skipped right to the marrying part."

"To be fair, it worked great on drunk me."

"Whereas sober you wouldn't have given me the time of day?"

Rosaline ponders it for a moment.

"I don't know, I think sober me was beginning to come around. It just would have taken some time."

"More time than _this_?"

"A lot more time. And you might have given up on me before it happened, if you hadn't accidentally shackled yourself to me."

"Well," a smile and a kiss, impish and indulgent in turn, "thank fuck I did then."

"Yes, thank God. No matter how much we regretted it at first."

"To be honest, I didn't really regret it _that_ much."

This is a lot of new information to take in all at once, so Rosaline doesn't stop him when he keeps talking.

"It was nice to have a roommate, and a friend. Of course by the time I was ready to call you that, I was already far past feeling just friendship."

“Yeah? And when was that?” Rosaline feels her heart skip a little at the audacity of the question, but even as Rosaline feels nervous ( _why_ , she wonders – what is she afraid his answer will be?), Benvolio's smile is there to reassure her.

“A lot sooner than I liked to admit, but I can't really put a precise date on it. I think by the time we went to the Hamptons, I was pretty far gone already.”

“When you called me a sea goddess,” she reiterates with a mischievous smile, because he did, and this is certainly as good a time as any to remind him of that fact.

Benvolio isn't embarrassed in the least. “Yes,” he says and kisses her again, just because he can, she presumes, “and I stand by that assessment. You looked _divine_ in that bathing-suit.”

God, he's smooth when he isn't holding back on the charm, Rosaline thinks distractedly, before she remembers that she had a point here somewhere.

“So why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Because I didn't want to spring that on you just when you were starting your new life. I didn't want to be the guy holding you back."

She can't believe he would honestly think so, after everything he's done for her; not just giving her a place to live and a break from her financial worries but providing months of support and friendship and the strength to get back on her feet – but knowing him, he's probably completely convinced he did nothing for her at all.

"You could _never_ hold me back. If anything, you're the one who got me here." She looks pointedly at their bare bodies, wrapped in rumpled sheets and surrounded by utter chaos. "Literally and figuratively."

He laughs. "You're such a nerd, Capulet.”

"You know you love it," Rosaline teases back, and meets no protest. Instead, he looks at her again, with that look that is so familiar and nonetheless makes her heart feel like it's going to burst, now that she knows exactly what it means.

"Yeah," he says, infinitely soft, "I do."

It's pretty close to an 'I love you', and considering all the things she's been panicking about recently, Rosaline expects to freak out about this too. But nothing happens except that the warm happy feeling inside her spreads until she can feel it from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. But she can't say that she has any objections at all to hearing these kinds of things, which means perhaps she'd be okay with saying them too.…

And because she's been scared long enough and courage has served her much better in this than fear, Rosaline puts that theory to the test right away.

"I love you too." Her heart beats almost painfully in her throat as she says it, but she forces herself not to avert her eyes. If she's going to say this, she might as well make sure Benvolio really believes her.

The look on his face suggests he does – and the smile following her words makes it all worth it, she thinks, every second of worry and all the exasperated looks from Livia and Juliet and almost falling out her window calling after him to settle this once and for all. All of it was worth it because it brought them here, tangled up in each other in her old bed – and because now she knows she really means it: She does love her Montague.

 


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really is it: The very end of this fic. It's so full of pure fluffy happiness it can rightfully be called cheesy, but they deserve it, and so do you all for sticking with me through this torturously long slow burn of a fic. So, once again, thank you! And if you liked this fic and, like me, aren't ready to let go of Rosaline and Benvolio yet, you can check out my other two works-in-progress: one rom-commy modern AU and an in-canon AU that serves as my personal version of the Season 2 we deserved.

_Epilogue_

 

"I, Benvolio Montague, take you, Rosaline Capulet, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward,…"

A year and a half after Rosaline accidentally got married, she's once again standing in a chapel in Vegas - although, if memory serves, this one is a lot cleaner and nicer than the one that saw her first wedding. Not to mention, it's early afternoon instead of night, everyone is mostly sober, and there's an actual priest present.

Right now, Benvolio is reciting the first part of his wedding vows to that priest, and Rosaline looks at him and marvels at how they got here.

“...for better or for worse...”

There has definitely been both better and worse this past year as they tried to make their brand new relationship work long-distance, Rosaline recalls. Benvolio kept complaining about her cramped apartment every time he visited her, and offering to help her rent a bigger one – which would have kind of defied the purpose of making her own money again in the first place. Rosaline on the other hand was constantly worried that, with her gone, Benvolio would slide back into his old workaholic habits, and instructed both Romeo and Mercutio to provide her with regular updates. But the peace at _Montague & Sons_ lasted, and Damiano backed off a little bit once he realized that Benvolio's intention was never to take over the business entirely but simply to get a little more respect and autonomy. Leading the domestic housing department, Benvolio is now happier than ever simply giving people nice places to live in, and Rosaline's own return to her true calling went equally well: her thesis is progressing in leaps and bounds, with an excerpt from it already published as a paper, and she's seeing no signs of tiring of it yet.

After a few months, they even got the hang of the whole long-distance thing, and looking back, Rosaline finds that even those months apart were a good experience, taking them out of the reluctant roommates-dynamic they started out with, and allowing them to learn more and more about each other, through long phone calls and good morning-texts and Benvolio's eagerly anticipated visits. He even chartered a helicopter to visit her once and took her on a ride on it for her birthday, and Rosaline immediately took the opportunity, at the next Montague dinner she attended, to tell everyone about the romantic gesture.

Things at the Montague-Capulets, as her sister now calls them, are going well indeed – which is why Rosaline was so surprised when Benvolio first brought up the idea of renewing their vows. At first she thought he was joking, especially since he made the suggestion by going down on one knee on a Sunday morning in the middle of her tiny apartment to ask:

“Rosaline Capulet, will you marry me?”

Having just woken up, Rosaline hadn't been able to come up with a more intelligent reply than: “But we're already married.”

“I'm aware. But the thing is,” and here Benvolio had gotten to his feet again, beginning to look a little nervous, and she had understood that this was not a joke at all, “the whole point of getting married is the promise you make to one another. And we... well, we don't really remember much about making that promise.”

Personally, Rosaline thought that the more important promise was the one they had made to each other on the day she had moved in here, when they had decided to give their relationship a chance – a promise that had been repeated with every phone call, every text, every time they admitted how much they missed each other. In her opinion, their bond does not rely on some symbolic words but on their daily actions.

But if Benvolio wanted a repeat of those symbolic vows, he would get it – after all, Rosaline made another vow the night she had finally told Benvolio she wanted to be with him: The promise to never let him have any doubt about how much he is loved. If that meant standing before a priest to say it, she would.

The idea of an actual big church wedding in Verona was quickly dismissed – symbolic as the ceremony may be, they would still be doing it for themselves, not for anyone in Verona. The only people they wanted with them were the ones who had known the truth about their relationship all along, and could fully appreciate the importance of this day.

Their friends and family reacted to the news exactly as Rosaline expected them to: Livia congratulated them warmly but not without muttering something about them being “ridiculous saps”. Juliet simply squealed. Romeo tried to act cool but felt the need to give them both a long, tearful hug. And Mercutio barely finished taking in the news before he began planning the most outrageously rowdy Vegas trip possible, claiming how convenient it would be that they could simply combine their second wedding with their first bachelor and bachelorette parties.

They did manage to talk Mercutio out of turning their second wedding into a weekend-long party, but they made the mistake of allowing him to throw them a de facto bachelor and bachelorette party the night before, with the result that their actual wedding day almost got waylaid by hangovers.

Luckily, the ceremony is scheduled in the afternoon, and since Rosaline decided to skip the big white dress in favor of a simpler and, given the circumstances, more appropriate blue one without any of the trappings of petticoats and corsets and whatnot, it didn't take her all that long to get ready this morning.

Even without a dress fit for a princess, Rosaline knew she made the right choice the moment Benvolio emerged from the bathroom and saw her getting ready earlier. “A slinky number in my favorite color? You really know what I like”, he commented and pulled her in for a kiss so thorough Rosaline was glad she hadn't done her make-up yet.

They arrived at the chapel a little late because apparently, Benvolio _really_ loves her dress (the same color as that bathing suit that impressed him so thoroughly on their first beach trip), but once they got there, the proceedings went off without a hitch – and now, suddenly, Benvolio is done saying his vows and it's Rosaline's turn.

And for all that she thought the ceremony was purely symbolic, when she actually begins to say those words – heard so many times in so many versions over time – Rosaline does feel like there's a special weight to them.

"I, Rosaline Capulet, take you, Benvolio Montague, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."

Her voice does get a little shaky towards the middle, but Rosaline forces herself to pull trough – and Benvolio's encouraging smile reminds her who she's doing this for, and why it counts.

And then suddenly there's not much left to do – the priest says his blessing, they kiss, and just like that, Rosaline's second turn marrying the same man is over.

“Alright, that's taken care of,” Romeo comments, acting like they didn't just catch him wiping away tears with his sleeve. “What's next?”

Next is a steak dinner, and then cocktails and karaoke, and then dancing, and by the time they arrive at the hotel's rooftop bar, Juliet finally catches on.

“Oh my _God_ , you're recreating your _wedding_ day!”

Rosaline feels a little as if she's been caught doing something unspeakably embarrassing, but Benvolio smiles broadly as he confirms Juliet's suspicion.

“Well, there are a few gaps in our memory of the original wedding day, so we figured we'd just make new memories."

Mercutio groans.

“That is the cheesiest shit I've heard since Romeo stopped making me listen to his poems for Juliet.”

Rosaline grins. “Well, you can thank him and Juliet for this entire day then.”

With a sigh, Mercutio seems to resign himself to the plan. “So, what was the next stop on your magical drunken wedding day bonanza?”

Benvolio grins mischievously, and Rosaline quickly answers the question before he can say something designed to amuse Mercutio but more likely to make her sister unable to ever look her in the eye again.

“This is the last stop. The sun should set soon, and the view from here is great. Enjoy.”

But of course, Benvolio won't let her get away with that.

“Yes, enjoy, and excuse us while we go and make some more memories.”

With that, he takes her hand and pulls her away to the elevator, and Rosaline makes an apologetic face but doesn't _really_ try to dissuade him.

The last thing she hears of their friends and family is a wild cacophony of laughter, wolf whistles and – in her sister's case – exaggerated gagging noises, then the elevator doors close.

They've barely started moving downwards before Benvolio's lips are on her neck and his hands on her waist and he's crowding her against the mirrored back wall of the elevator. But tempting as it is, Rosaline doesn't immediately give in, even though his caresses are already threatening to make her knees go weak.

“You are _terrible_! We made them all fly out here for our vow-renewal, and now you want to ditch them?”

“We invited them to the ceremony and the celebrations, and those are over. Besides, Romeo and Juliet did the same thing to us, didn't they?”

Rosaline has to concede he has a point there. It feels like forever ago that she was here the first time, grumpily watching as their cousins were making overly dramatic plans for a ridiculous elopement – and now here she is, after saying her vows in a Vegas chapel _twice_ , even if she only remembers one version, and meaning them more with every passing day. None of that would have happened if Romeo and Juliet hadn't abandoned them to cocktails and karaoke and rash decisions.

“And thank God they did,” Benvolio says exactly what she's thinking, and then steals a kiss before she can reply, and Rosaline slings her arms around his neck and yields without further protest.

She's not going to tell him this because she knows Benvolio will gleefully call her a sap in return for the many times she's mocked _his_ romantic streak, but not for the first time, Rosaline sends a quick prayer heavenward: Someone up there turned what she thought was her biggest mistake into the best thing that ever happened to her, and for that, Rosaline will always be grateful.

And, though she will never tell them so: She'll always be grateful to Romeo and Juliet for getting them here.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the vows: I used a version the internet said was Catholic, because I figured families with that many italian-sounding names might just be Catholic. Then I remembered the Capulets are supposed to be a WASPy kind of old money family, i.e. probably not Catholic, and then I cursed Shakespeare for being so inconsistent in his Italianate naming conventions, and then I was too confused to change it, so now this is what it is. I'm honestly not sure about how fixed the exact wording of vows is, or if it changes according to church, denomination, personal taste etc.


End file.
